My sister doesn’t live here anymore
Down the hall, from my room
Near the stairs.
I don’t either.
But in my mind she lives
Down the hall, from my room
And if I close my eyes in bed
Far away from home
I can see it.

Mothers, I understand
that not just the absence, but that the empty space
is filled
is worst:
It can no longer receive what was.
Even the Angel said “He is not here”
And Mary did not stop to see the empty tomb transformed into
a relic.
“He has risen!”
Indeed! But where have you risen to?
Why are my motherly tears so melancholy?
More—they panic
This knot in my throat—
“Do not be afraid!”—
Its darkness moaning,
like a forlorn poet,
of “the tender grace of a day that is dead”
and it is I that won’t come back to me.

How is it to be so old?
For the words “10 years” to have such meaning?
For “50 years hence” to sound so hollow?
Yes, “10 years” signifies with so much force
you end up living on a station’s bench:
Thoughtless, you watch
seated,
and homeless,
the last signs depart from every trace of meaning—
The phrase itself catapults off a cliff.

How is it to not raise your glance
and view only those huge expanses,
slightly rolling, unending plains
which we graze upon and frolic?
How is it to not raise your glass?
to expanses tinted by a lazy sun—
We mistake for eternity from the front porch.