I do not know how to let things die; hand, a curved cup around limp leaves, wilted plant against fingers gently moulding moist soil into a bed for dis- integrating roots: here, is warmth, here, is comfort, here, is a shelter in the storm— do not mind my battered body, do not touch my bleeding fingers, rest easy in the shade of my grief (it will not touch you, even my tears do not touch my cheeks); You are a dead thing I have only recently learned to leave buried. You, a voice in the cool of the afternoon; You, the burning hand of a Guyana sun, sweat curling beneath breast under the weight of school uniform, shoulders pressed together beneath the open shadow of concrete corridors; Do I bury you, always, with the bitterness of my grief? Do I bury you, only, with the bitterness of this loss? I think only of you as you ought to be remembered: bat twisting on a dried field crack of ball against bat's breast I remember you only, as you were:
IWhat were you? The iron band around my throat I hold in reminder that I should leave you rotting? The rush of happy breath held in the soft, and tender, curve of your hand holding mine? Garden-nurse, and Necromancer, let go your crafts. Ask only for ash, of the burial ground. Not sour, stained bones. Not rotting flesh. Not a skull to hold tears. K.N.O.W. April 1, 2019. Monday. 19.23 hrs. Day 1.