lynn finger

IF I SAY THE RIGHT WORD

There must be a word for the six directions

of disappearance, hollow like the sky.

I interview myself on 24/7 news

but they don’t tell

you that when people die, the marigold

on your lips weeps. I say you are gone,

like you left out the door, but you are gone.

I follow the field

butterflies, yellow as an inside-out heart

valve. There is no map to the skeletal walls

I look for, but am dropped inside.

The weight of finding it

here. Hibiscus crowns the walls, snow-covered

ivy on the door, it’s locked.

You left no way to find you. Stories grow

from passwords, scarabed from secrets.

Silver swirls of snow & horses find a hole

in the fence

& slowly take me on a journey in burning smoke.

The ash-filled air still holds us. There is nothing

to prevent us. A spider runs on tiles & destroys

time. I am lost.

I follow the whispered hooves & listen to wind

through leaves & bark. I follow them nose to tail

like you wanted me to, I follow your carvings

& silence.

The life you put together from sand. The eyelids

& furrows you staved to keep alight. I stand

in birches, never having moved at all,

breathing.