Remembrance

The flowers are scraggly this year, less bloomy

Than leggy and faded as if they’d already felt

The first frost. Not sure if it’s me or them, so I’ll

Blame the weather . . . or the universe since

Everything seems a bit off kilter, the bubble

Within the lines but not quite centered, and

I can’t seem to get the picture straight, so I

Cock my head like a quizzical dog wondering

What I’m missing. When the abstact becomes

Concrete, when Death becomes death,

The poet, so abstruse, so allusive, flails:

How to account for this, this hole suddenly

Rent in time and space and heart that words

And thoughts, fuck them, cannot fill?

It could always be anyone, but this time

It was you. It will be everyone, but this time

It was you. There’s still the rest of summer

To slog through. Maybe the flowers will

Remember themselves in remembrance of you.

7/7/2023

For C.B. 12/6/1967 - 7/7/2023