Category Archives: Poetry

Love Letters

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Dearest,

You remember better than I do the letter I once wrote to the justletsbefriendsboy.

Not like you—so far out of my league—worlds wake at the sound of your voice.

I want to squish your check sideways and demand your attention like the petulant but well-meaning child I am and love—

Grandma!! Look!

How does one grasp the attention of the Eternal Beloved?

Surprisingly easily because you love us so.

A really good listener

I want more like Christmas morning

Waiting for your voice

In the House,

Love.

Fifty-fifty

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The deep blue and slivery moon

And the bearded woman

Shave then

bathe their cats

Affix bowties to all

Retrieve each

shimmery dress from the closet of

Yesterday-today-forever

Inventory chores

Left

Undone in the house

In the ambiguous darkness just short of

Midnight

Matthew 25:13 KJV
[13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

Leave your robe

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I try to gather traveling instructions for the “nice lady” I met at the coffee shop

Find those who sell the oil and stick with them closely until the bridegroom comes

Leave even your best robe behind

Be willing to sell all you have for the treasure in the field

Do all this for the least of these

Because narrow is the path to life (and few there are who will find it)

Call on the name of the Lord to be saved

If you don’t already seek and find him in

Ordinary wonders

Matthew 25:11-14 KJV

[11] Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. [12] But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. [13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. [14] For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.

Lanterns to release in air

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She wore a soft, pink sweater (her sister bought) as though the cool chill of October could touch her anymore and the small group of people gathered at her ad hoc memorial are floating up as the sky darkens

The ashes and the pink sweater and the flash of inexplicable light get me again and again

I have to conjure some litany for this–

Sprite, fly

Luminesce

Alight upon yonder shore

Mermaid

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Grief been here before–Target was closed and we drove

In my presbyopia I could not identify the man or his freaked out dog

Who can tell between Sirens and mermaids? They are both capable of artifice and the old-fashioned waterborne howl in

Such dark waters

I swim back to the day

The park

Beauty all around

And fast food wedding feast

Pregnant bride vomiting while

Someone took money from the medic’s bag

How did we drive back across that precipitous bridge?

All I can do is elide the best of you with

What will be

What must and shall

Be.

John 2:5 KJV

[5] His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it .

Shibboleth

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When Mary talks now on the Fisher-Price phone of loss, she speaks with a five year old’s falsetto. She is breezy, upbeat even, and we exchange pleasantries through the medium of her daughter’s voice.

Mary, the girls have your laugh, I try to tell her before the line cuts off. Mary, I always wanted to be your real mom, I tell her before the line clicks off. Mary, that last day haunts me. The girls talk as though you still have the giant carnival unicorn, as though you tucked it under your arm and carried it right through

The earth will soon dissolve like snow/The sun forebear to shine/But God who called me here below/will be forever mine

Urn for ashes, woman

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Apparently you can buy anything on Amazon I think as once again I am in a club I don’t want to belong to

He says what do I do now without her? And I tell him, she is not there. That is not where she is

Echoing the conversations between angels and other Marys

I tell him what I would tell you, or me or anyone–a dog on the street if I had to–

She is eternal and the pain we feel is that verification that we must seek eternity

Seek the one who can

Get us

Past our terrible selves

Mary Joanna Lee

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Mary was born on January 1, 1993. She was born to ________ and _______and is survived by _____________________________________. She had kids with__________, who preceded her in death by a handful of months, days, minutes, hours.

Her children are bright little lights, and I want to gather all of them to me, sing with them, raise them onto strong shoulders, proceed with them in a march more wedding than funeral, acknowledge that no life is actually just a handful of years, months, days, hours, minutes, things smaller than that, things that can only be measured by Hands torn for

For her, for me

He precedes us in life, in death, in life again

Walk out of that grave, girl, walk into life

All because of Him