I spent my days waiting for the whinny of the tethered
horse, the monarch butterfly’s black and yellow stripes
resting atop purple Jacaranda petals, the ephemeral
hummingbird in the almost bare late-season Hibiscus.
My belly longs for love prismatic, lit with end-of-day
sun. I dream of caresses unfurling a fresh calla lily.
My heart closes like a fist, as if Death finger painted
cartoon crosses of black ash on its four chambers
leaving something dead inside, a clock without hands
to tick, unable to track time’s passage. Nothing enters,
nothing escapes, a mausoleum well-hidden, until I understood
your eyelids remain closed, feigning sleep, ashen lines seal
you in. My bloodied fingertips dig into the grave but love
sifts through the sieve like dirt. I retrieve only pebbles, bone,
insect carcasses trapped in silk threads, lift my arms
like Euphorbia stalks to the cloudless Sierran sky.