I
The sun streams through the window
baking my skin slowly
creating its first heat
since you touched me
for the last time.
II
Strollers and skateboards
crowd the park.
Runners and joggers push past
the old woman
shielding herself with last summer’s broad-rimmed straw hat.
Her paper-thin skin unprotected from the wrath of the sun
the wrath of the son who has turned against her
yet won’t leave her side.
She has not been warm since she lost her family
lost her husband
25 years ago
Pushes away the woman who dares to try
to love her son.
He is hers, and hers alone.
She has burnt him to a crisp
leaving the sun-shadow of a pained smile
scorched on the sidewalk.
III
I’ve dragged a chaise lounge
into the sliver of patio
that gets the earliest sun.
I’m startled by a buzzing explosion of noise
as a small winged rodent flies too close to my head.
I jump up, cower,
the hair on my arms electrified.
By the time I realize it’s a hummingbird,
I remember:
One is still gone.
One is still dead.
No matter what flies through the air
when the sun is shining.
IV
We’re all a little tender these days.
Springtime may be the time of young love,
beginning loves,
first loves.
But what happens in spring for the middle-aged
and late-to-love?
For us, sunny spring days are a lament
a time to remember the first firsts,
and the firsts that came later
first losses
losses that last a lifetime
losses that outlast
the time shared.
How many years must you be together
to outweigh being dead for 25?
Do the rules of math apply to death-years?
V
The sun is setting
The sky a magnificent blend of coral and pink and orange
My skin is cooling
My eyes a bit tired from squinting
I close the computer and head back inside
not wanting to write another poem
about death
on a sunny day.
powerful!