May we not forget the great unheard sound

made from the quivering of life and vibrations of

all that came before,

the revels of grass-fed tears,

mummified by time and tar.

May I stay partitioned

by my different lives.

One in the living green,

the other in the dying gray of time.

Unwholed and knowing of something missing,

a desire for a mother I have and yet have never known.

May you guide me,

with eyes through which I shall never see.

May it all remain untouched, and perfect,

unmarred by progression and syntax.

My breath a gift, an answer,

not to a test but to a prayer whispered over a womb.

I use it unceremoniously while the lace,

a gift from the mother of my father,

lays woefully, protected by the dark of my closet.

The light my eyes take in greed is gifted

by a far nobler parent.

The star of morning, the tyrant of time,

both hungry for what they had made

and could not have.

Their brutal inhumanity cut them from greater beauty.

So I need not continue, for I now know the rules.

The pure are blind to their everlasting grace.

Only the cruel can dream of their higher place.

So run on, deep water.

This is not a matter of may.

This is a matter of unable to tear myself from

the memory of a living garden that was never mine.