to life

i

cannot

speak

for fear of these words tumbling from your mouth like acrobats
and disappearing into the air,

the flexion and extension of your words
curling into a fist.

i cannot bear it, this swift and gentle
resuscitation from once-death, twice-, thrice-

stricken with the repercussions of the fatality
the loss
the death.

you never knew her, never asked for her name,
but she still lingers in the corner of your bedroom,
pressing, pressing, pressing.
waiting.

the truth is so far away and yet
it stands right next to you, breathing in your words
and exhaling skepticism, bitter forbearance.

once it was inside, within, pressing.

how gentle those hands were, how swift
the clack and clink of metal upon the soft submission of flesh.
the give and yield of it, yet rising and falling with
each intake of dearest oxygen.

the bristles of your comb scrape against the pale
numbness of your scalp and come away with the remnants of
your self, your soul. you wonder if she would have been
a reflection in the mirror or
simply an illusion.

you believe it was the latter, despite
how much evidence points to the former. never
gentle, ever sure. the motto of the death bringers,
harbingers of a life not quite as pleasant as the orchestras and operas
you once listened to, not quite as
candid as the novels you once beseeched for the answers
to life.

you think you have heard enough,
and it is enough. is it enough?

mind-blowing and mystifying,
the memorization of a hand against the thumb, the mouth,
sealed with a hundred kisses.
a thousand afterimages of the life you once had,
she would have had with you.

the scraping of metal and the crashing of glass,
the tilted hourglass with grains of time
floating without purpose in a vacuum. a tornado caught
in a bottle, a whirlpool swirling down the shower drain. a
leafless elm
filled with starlings and music notes
plinking down into the gutter.

to have and to hold,
that was your wish.
to have and to hold dear

if

only

briefly.)

A/N: This was inspired by the women who spoke about their heartbreaks at the March for Life rally back in January 2008.