Leatherbacked

You blink and look and stare
and stare

As if trying to find the snag in the dream
the catch in the sweater
the cards hidden up someone's sleeves

The meaning of this miracle that tapped you on the elbow

As I sit on this stump and read
from these pages of your cousin's pulped flesh,
I burst with the excitement of next year seeing you draped in color,

You. master of graceful loss.

You, vessels of wasted breaths,

Spiraling odes of love and loss,
lost pages strewn on the desk and the floor and the eyes and the sky and my limbs,
each one with a piece of myself I do not want to see anymore.

what have I created?