When you’re gone we just don’t
talk about you anymore,
don’t mention your existence
or the sudden absence of it,
much less still our lips for a minute
of silence sacrificed in your name.
The quiet we cover you up with
is colder than that,
less like a burial with its awful, haunted wailing
and more like a neat, clean, pink eraser
in the hands of a businessman
who assures you it isn’t personal.
Not personal:
therein lies the poison.
The system, we are assured,
can chug along without you—
you, a replaceable cog or piston—
so don’t worry about the collateral damage
if you ever find yourself suddenly missing,
because instead of dropping to our knees in the snow,
scratching and ripping
at the dead grass and dirt
till we unearth a deeper pain
and clearer purpose for living,
we’ll be so fine it will make you
uncomfortable.
We pretend that the pond
has no ripples post-stone,
and what scares me most
is if we spend enough days
running out far away from the
center of the center of our
soul-centered self like this,
eventually
it won’t.
Backyard Apricots 