Seasons change yet somehow you’re still here
in that same lemon sundress I bought you yesteryear.
The buzz of cicadas follows you, a vision in boundless hazel
like a porcelain angel, forever wild in the soundless winter.
Birthdays—ivory bows trained on the velvet of my mother
as her belly tears open and a pink thing falls out, ungrateful.
I hope that never happens to you; well, I know it won’t.
The crisp decay of fate dawns on us, and you have to go.

Tomorrow I see the same blue sky, and when it’s night,
the same milky moonlight glistens in selfish hope;
to hear your heart of rose gold beating in tandem
with the weight of my footsteps on the forest floor.
I still feel echoes of your tenderness, but they’re like
nails scratching on vinyl, leaving unpleasant grooves.
We were always the red runaways, blitzing impossibly
through the fields of Asphodel; love is just a storm
in a teacup.

I yearn for my mother.