Notes from The Belt Parkway on the 27th of May

And when did the emptiness dissipate

The cars passed by for two hours and never stopped 

Lifeless I loved you still

I held you

As your soul departed the bone 

I held you for the first time and drove you back home

85 mph on Conduit, could I make it home in time? 

Guilt and shame eternal I held you, to never let go

I held you

How cruel was the world to abandon you?

How cruel the world was to shun me as I held you on the shoulder of the Belt Parkway?

Why did all my writings come true?

As the passerby’s gawked, I learned truly in these moments what it meant to be careless

No regard nor concern for the judgements of those who could not understand

I held you

I found my religion again, for I was nobody to question the path

Nor was I anyone to question the premonition from the night before 

The loss imminent, the death signaled by the herrings in the foyer

I held you

The warmth of your skin remained past the wake

The love in your eyes and purity of who you were

Though my soul retched, could I breathe all my life force anew to you?

Sacrificial Sacraments; I’d give my all to you

I held you

In those last moments may my voice and Dizzy Gillespie have guided your soul

Fragments of my existence were buried with you in the garden

At the long-shot reality I dreamt of us, growing old in my mother’s home

Eternally now you had a home and a family in me 

And as I plant the lilies and chrysanthemums may you reincarnate eternal on our plane 

I held you

I hold you