i sold your car today

by Pamela Twining

as i slough off another piece of you
i still sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
walk journeys my legs have never traveled
            on the wings of your tales
deep in the jungles, high in rockstrewn wildernesses tapping
into the rhythms and bowels of the fertile Mother
her vast wastelands throb of waterfall and avalanche
            clear purity of uncharted Nowhere
Amazon basin to Sagarmatha’s unconquered heights
too hungry for words
and words are all existence, no digital flatness
words are flesh and winds have teeth
to tear from you everything familiar
which was the point

where are the Loves? the forgotten children?
placentas of the Word giving birth to meaning
future artisans molding the clay of our belonging
from the flesh of our words

possessions once so dear to you
only dear to me now because of you
and every hour every day a little more
            another bit
                        floats out of reach
your face, the feel of your skin against mine
found now mostly in dreams
sometimes all i want to do is sleep
have you come again to fill my days and nights
with the small pains and pleasures that we were
            and know for once the essence of you
                        so deeply hidden in the Wanting
life attachments and detachments wrestled screaming
to earth in marching meditations
            climbing
                        reaching
for a heaven unattainable until the ashes spread
and sink again into the body of the Mother
            you always sought
offered in a blinding jewel to the chariot of the dawn
i ache with the loss of you
whose heart was never mine
whose spirit dodged and danced among the aromatic green
the Orinoco fronds and heavy air so wet and fragrant
            you could drink it
who scaled unnumbered heights
stone fingertips piercing through the bellies of clouds
making no obeisance to the sky
their craggy fingers grasping Light
a scissor slicing deep into the vitals
hot nutrients for those seeds
those words
that flesh

i lost another piece of you today
but still i sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
taste your words in my mouth
and kiss them forward

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