Joseph Lisowski writes

FROM DEATH’S SILENCE [part IX]

FORGIVE ME

My daughter, I've taken

the oil which you used

to make your skin shine.

On me, patches of dark

spot red blisters of sensitive skin.

I cannot bear the sun

as well as you had.

(It takes careful weeks

before I turn the color of your day's tan).

I have put on your lotion too

and may use it all.

I hope you don't mind.

THIS SPECTRE'S POWER

Blood is more than pulse running

from a hidden heart.

Blood is a spectre,

a deep purple clot

that surrounds the body

that slaps hard

against mouth and nose.

A heavy cloth held

by a muscular hand.

Blood is pressure outside,

grief closing in.

We must struggle against this,

our breath which carries this clot.

GRIEF WORK

Resurrecting the dead

is the only true ambition.

All else expires in body heat.

Let me understand the Cabala,

instruct Rosacrucians in The Golden Dawn

tell Chinese The Secret of the Golden Flower,

rewrite The Egyptian Book of the Dead,

share voices with Edgar Cayce,

cast dice with Madame Blavatsky,

show Blake eternity in a wild flower,

seize darkness from John of the Cross.

This alchemy of a wandering mind.

I'd trade it all

for one good shovel

to fit my hand like callus.

And dig, never to quit,

till sweat becomes baptismal water

and dead love comes to life.

Resurrection is all that matters.

DESIRE

My daughter is dead

again in my arms.

I touch the cold

that is not she. She

dies in my eyes.

Nothing comes

from her closed lids.

She visits my emptiness

and layers it with strands

of her golden hair.

They are the ladder

that I climb.

I reach toward her,

not knowing what I'll find.

REVERSALS

My daughter blesses

my regret.

Her touch is a breeze,

a balm to my ache.

Then she is gone.

I look in the wind,

the nothing that's left.

I have felt her love

and need to again.

DEATH WATCH

Morning breaks through dreamless skies.

Night surrenders easily.

Summer rises once again

in folds of zinnia, daisy, marigold.

All of that is outside.

Inside, funeral roses still bloom.

They infest the air

my daughter no longer breathes.

Her scent is no longer everywhere.

Not in her tee shirts which I wear.

Not in her make-up, clothes,

and shoes her mother keeps.

It is another summer day

she has not seen, a day

without our smells and shouts,

another day without her warmth, her smile.

My brother-in-law sits now

by his father's hospital bed.

The man feels death coming fast

and orders his son to buy a funeral suit.

My brother-in-law sits among goodbyes,

his mother and sisters, and his father

whom the priest has already blessed,

while my sister cries in my wife's arms.

VISITATION

My daughter comes into our new house

on waves of music we listened to together

in our difficult island life.

The sun is crisp, Canadian air sweeps in.

I ask her what she thinks.

She only shakes her head.

I feel she's about to speak

but words are lost in transit--

somewhere between impact

and that last breath,

that last sound no one

but her has heard.

I strain to hear her voice,

my own ears dammed with tears.

A LESSON

My daughter does not care

for me speaking of her as dead.

But her admonishments are gentle.

We speak to each other in new ways,

though I still lumber along

on halting steps and brood

like an ancient earth-worn man.

She is a light

just beyond touch.

She caresses my head

with an imperceptible pale yellow

refraction of sun.

I speak to her often.

She replies in a language

without sound. I listen

and begin to learn

of love,

and its silence.

-------
AFTERWORD

by LL

An anniversary poem

(for Chrissy)

Your death, daughter,

Was a hurricane. Wind

Shrieking terror at 4 a.m.

We lay in our beds dreaming

We were safe. When we awoke

Darkness was everywhere.

Destruction rained on us like

Black blood. Broken bones

Littered the streets

Where we walked and walked, searching

For pieces of our lives, searching

For you.

It's been a long time, my love,

Since we've seen a green or living thing.

But now the sky lightens in the east

And hope

Is a tree in bud.