Only Corvids in the Building

I haven’t written a poem in 3 years. The last one was for you.

There is no lyricism left in me; just the pink haze I walk around in, blood spatter on my lenses. I’ve always been a terrible shot, but I know my munitions.

I never expected that pain would be gone from my life. But I thought agony was. I thought I had done as much agony as I needed to. This time – I don’t know if I can get back up, soldier.

Tonight my mother told me that she feels she's been merely existing rather than living for the last 5 years, and that she wants to start living again. I was so happy to hear her say that, and so surprised. I didn't think she could. I thought she had been beaten. But now she wants to start wearing makeup. She wants to do things just because they make her happy. Because her divorce is over (heavy cough) and those we loved who were sick are dead, and have been for a bit, and she's ready.

I don’t know if I will feel that way someday. I feel like the divorcee. I feel like the grieving widow. The heaviness in my left breast cannot be healthy; it cannot be tenable. I will be felled by my own heart.

There was a time years ago when I wasn’t sure if I loved you romantically. How? How to be unsure about a delicate lower lip. About a nose shaped like Bach’s clef signature. About deep eyes dappled in light like the shallow minnow pond.

Crows grieve. They grieve loud and they grieve quiet. Crows can die of heartbreak.

Hope is the thing with feathers.