Returning from the Day of the Dead

So here you are, landed,

brimful of holiday.

Yet buried still – dead weight

among the souvenirs – 

lurks a primal fear, hand-painted,

 

of one day being left alone.

 

It is a drag anchor,

has held you back too long.

 

Be well, I say. Be well.

 

Albeit fierce in its embrace

let anguish slip away.

 

Life’s a descent on scree, mostly.

Planting both feet sideways,

one hand clutches at stony ground

 

the other skyward flails

reaching for direction.

The headlong balance of braking

 

and velocity.

                    Only know

those empty places, with you in them,

shall always bloom.

 

Be well. Be well. Be well.

 

xi. 2025

Heart-to-heart

Beneath this chandelier ceiling, supine

I am cuffed. A universal donor

 

held by the takeaway message of blood:

that colour is history, not difference.

 

In a suspension of ten dreamt minutes

you appear, glinting darkly through the glass,

 

fingers formed like Sally Bowles goodbye wave

on a platform unlocated. Unfound

 

that picture of windswept hair, your blurred dress

slipping from the camber of a shoulder.

 

Listen. Between the closure of gristly doors

and - full force - their opening, pressure pulses

 

floods my heart. Its no-light chambers swelling,

even the pouch where clotted hurt clings on.

 

Yet all our absorbed past is cleansed before

the needle is withdrawn. Not one beat skipped.

  

xi. 2025