For Martin
Swallow your pill,
we will not be remembered
Your bird drawings
will pile up
like dead carcasses
after a gluttonous feast
abandoned,
My music will disappear
faster than the stealth of darkness
forgotten, unheard, never known.
We won’t remember your voice,
your face, your hands
your feet.
Our mothers wait at the gate
for their final flight heavenwards
fluttering, ready
back packs weighed in
filled with disease
and necessities
I will write the end
to our story
and imagine where we could have gone
this poem will draw the line
the border,
the path crossed
defining and shaping our relationship forever
more.
You could have been a window
I could see through,
I could have been a door
for you to open.
May 2021