I wanted to see
the largest moon of the year
tonight.  It's cloudy.
I can make out a dim glow.
Without you, it's just as well.

For Brian and Christopher, with Apologies to Kenneth ( Read more... )

I am helpfully
told, "Your desktop has unused
icons.  Please remove."
Those are his icons.  Maybe
someday I will, but not yet.

A low stump remains
where a honeylocust stood,
cut before its time.
Freak storms and freak illnesses
leave scars defined by absence.

White for victory,
yellow is for remembrance,
red is for friendship.
With floating lights we flout the
Emperor of Maladies.

A waxing moon shines
over the old stone bridge as
a brisk wind blows cool.
Still, the lights shine, taunting the
Emperor of Maladies.

I showed Brian a sestina roughly two three years ago.  He picked up on the end-word patterns at once and was intrigued by the form.  He had accompanied me to a translation class at Pennsic that year, and was interested in flexing poetic muscles since his physical body was telling him it was time to wind down on fighting.  (If we'd only known.)

He ( Read more... )

Written on each day, but had no access to this journal:

11-26

The women's shelter
needed food. I had canned goods.
Dragged forty pounds there.
"What?  You only take hot food?"
Do my shoulders ever hurt!

11-27

My husband's cousins
invited me to dinner,
but three hours away.
Memory and bounty were
the best medicine today.

11-28

Oh, the things I learned
about your ( Read more... )

How strange to be here,
lifting a glass in tribute,
dining among friends.
Any moment I expect
to see you, but I will not.

"Are you grieving the
loss of someone dear?" the ad
catches my eye.  Yes.
I am, but a clinical
trial sounds too much like whoring.

So this one is heavy, but getting compensation for the clinical trial of a new anti-depressant seems like a betrayal.  It seems like selling my emotions or my memory of Brian, somehow.  Even if taking part in a university- ( Read more... )

Spent the day cramming
the furniture of one house
inside one-bedroom.
It is still missing one thing:
How empty without you there!