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God only knows how many people leave sticky notes for their dead,

Pens pressed against slump-shouldered memories.

We crawl into the safety of our sister's slit wrists.

We soak in that nest of nerves.

I scream down the freeway in my criminal lingerie.

The horizon lowers its damp standards and I am still how many breaths away

From your last? I live in a blown fog. I trace your face with matches and hold

Your poems, their rivet written in the ash of my ire.

Since then---unbrushed teeth and sad mascara; the smudge

Of sunlight across my unawake; hair looped and stabbed by some sharp debt:

A paintbrush, a pencil---Sweetheart, tame those wild curls.

Come now, I am a member of the meat packers union, a milkmaid

Leaking sweet down the street.

Last night you came in and scattered

A fistful of teeth: they stood like little tombstones at my dreaming feet.

Who leaves sticky notes for their dead to read later?

You forgot your wine-stained books. You forgot your baby daughter.

I still wait for the mail---your frantic news. I still say your name and bury you.






*Published in Summer 2011 issue of The Cafe Review