Sympathy

Remains for burial

Zipped in black

Who comes to vouch then

Our misdeeds

Finally earn their napkin passage

I want to tell you

Open yourself 

Let me back

But you are bolted down

Empty of patience

Knowing when to leave

You are covered in oleander petals

Like a bride awaiting the fissure of her maidenhead

Bon voyage little girl

Leave behind your childhood room

All the china dolls you despised with their elegant haunted painted eyes

Under a yellow light attracting flies

Trying to catch up on diary entries half filled

The confessor wears a wagging chin, the judge is a mute 

And this rope will not be strong enough for two

We sit by sea spray electric in timber and soon 

There is no division

Between waiting and being

I can’t cry on demand or be happy, because you need me to be

You bought a faulty part

With your drive-through iced tea

Blessings over family dinner,  ash the crease between my eyes 

Eggshell blue walls

Symbols on concave plates

Sorrow out-stayed her welcome 

Take your wet bills and muddled sums

Away to the sheltering water

Overhead hawks cool in slipstream

Marveling the fresh note of deep current

Deceptively calm on jade surface