Para mi amigo del corazon...

For mi amigo del corazon... I will never forget...

Standing Alone
Carmelia Delia Lanza

"And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from the following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people and thy God my God..."

"Charles is where the garden will be,"
I tell my son on Palm Sunday,
the frost may still hit while we transform
the sand into soil for plants that pull me back,
an umbilical cord to my father.
I have resisted this gardening for a long time but now
I water the tree and feel this planting in my bones:
he talks about heirloom seeds from one generation to another
and my mother holds a bag of seeds in her garage,
she tells me she doesn't know what to do with them.
"The grass has taken over the garden," she says
as it should take over the world,
"I can't bend over anymore, I fall down."

Your body is over me and you ask me if I think of anyone else
while we f**k. Coming with you inside of me is not like my past.
I feel I turn myself inside out, skin is gone and I feel all
I have done, all I have meant to do brings me to this place,
the world moving night to day slowly under our bodies,
a thin moon is holding its breath, forgetting our names again.

We walk in the snow on this island where I was born,
my mother has no boots and steps in my footsteps.
The snow is up to our knees.
I have the number of the row and headstone,
my mother stops, she can't breathe,
she jokes that this would be the best place to die,
we would save some money, we could just throw her in a hole.
I keep going until I am standing over my father's half-year grave,
the wind wants to lift me over the headstone.
But I stand, a market of gravity, feeling the pull
to the center, feeling your heavy back against my breasts,
licking your black hair in the night,
no more talking, no more waving a hand, "forget about it,
"I have no moment left, no passing of fingers,
no stand of hair on my backbone,
I bury the seashells and let the wind lift me up;
my mother goes back to the car and says
she thought she was going to fall down.

I take my son to the ocean and we gather winter sand for you,
a man who is now my friend and will soon be my lover,
a seagull shivers a few feet away, looking for a warm spot.
I cannot offer him any hope while I dig with my fingers down,
your request was said as a joke and yet I take it seriously,
I will not understand your intensity until I am breathing
alone in my bed holding air that was once you.