CARPE DIEM I said at his funeral

It's warm again. Well, warmer. No snow. The sky is still as crisp and bright and clear and sharp and fierce and stunning as it hangs in black and stars over Esperanza's driveway. You're laughing. We're walking out to a green car. I'm laughing. We're laughing that kind of drunk laugh where something is so funny you go on laughing about it for ten minutes and your stomach hurts. You're a step ahead of me and lean on the car to face me. I'm wearing a skirt, leather I think, with my lace-up leather boots, too. The sky is still gorgeous. You're still laughing, kind of sighing in an attempt to breathe. The full moon is so bright it's casting shadows and your face is lit a brilliant gray and silver. I'm drunk and laughing and walking clumsily toward you in my boots. Toward you. Your laughing subsides slowly into more sighs. Sad. How sad you laugh. I can hear all your pain in your laughter. I'm a step away from you. You're wearing a stocking cap. God, your eyes are gorgeous. Your laughter melts into a silvery smile as I continue closer. The moon is pouring. I take your stocking cap off. I want, need to see all of you. Not next to me in a car. Not across a restaurant table. Not in a room with other people there. No words. Your arm moves like music and rests on my hip. Glad to know you are enjoying this, but this is a completely selfish endeavor, my dear. I slide your hat down to your shoulder. "Let me look at you," I smile, I say like a sleepy drunk. Your smile changes. One wouldn't notice, but I can. It's now a smile like crumbling walls. Like sleep. Like finding arms you know will protect you. Like bending eyebrows and sagging hearts and eyes like gorgeous magnets attached/needing/breathing what they hold. "I just want to look at you. All of you." And I run the backs of my fingers over your brow, under your eye, along your jaw, over your beard, under your chin, making new shadows, new moonlight pouring in as they travel, your eyes closing occasionally, your arms tightening around me, finding new gorgeousness every inch. You have such long eyelashes. I'm touching you like you could break. I'm touching you like I'm thirsty. Your arms wrap around me smoother and stronger, but. . I can still feel you shaking. Stop shaking. Shhhh, beautiful. Please stop shaking. I don't know how bright the moon is anymore, what color the sky is. My lips are on the skin just under your eye. You press your forehead against mine. Please, beautiful. Stop shaking. You kiss me in a similar place. I can't stop running my fingers along your features, like maybe if I touch you enough I can take all of you in, behold all of you, calm your shaking and your bleeding heart, or truly appreciate how

beautiful

you are.

Please, beautiful. Please.