Whole in Theory
Maybe life died that day
after all
my feet froze in place
and my hands turned a grape-shade of
purple while anxiously struggling to clutch
the China teacup.
I wanted to stroke your face
the way curious children finger a newborn’s features
but your body was cold
and only my mind could dart from the fallow position
that callously seized
me hostage.
Revelers rejoiced somewhere
I know they did,
oblivious to the ache that seized my
innards.
Even ordinary
tasks like defecating in an oval hole
seemed laborious in every sense of the
word.
I stared for a while,
at the slight bump dressing your
otherwise delicate nose and loveliness I would never again
be honored to inhale.
Breathing in everything that made you real
while capturing a mental snapshot
to soothe
for future desperations
or occasions
I simply need my mommy.
Twenty-four winters have passed
since that somber time,
war’s brutality
peered its unkind eyes
and lines claimed squatter’s rights by my lips.
Now
I value days when obscurity is gracious enough to
grant a respectable distance.
Perhaps life didn’t die,
it just became a bruised variant
of whole.
Honorable Mention, EOL Poetry Contest 2011-2012