237. Deaths and Diaries

I remember your great-aunt


pl.

It is are
and numerous

Remember a thing at the tip of your tongue
touched once by the tip of your finger
and you will be that most joyous thing

a person alive in the presence of your own memory

When someone dies
we write it down
to keep from forgetting her

or here

There is a certain place we stand
that keeps us from being anywhere else
so that the world seems centered
on our own tiny story

though we share
a story of our blood
that runs within us
not away

something we cannot
escape

what comes back to us
when she leaves us

when anyone does

And that person
is many people to us
unfolding petals
of a book
the air and scent
off each page and petal
the heft and taste
of ink on pulp
the million million words
that moved through
her body before the end


sing.

We are is
and singular

(and we sing)

bound by blood
wed by word

names in masses

Tanner Huth
Powell Ferraris
Renfro Auberson

a web of us
a web of is

one in place
of many
in place

We inhabit
a generation

We hold
the blood together

one hand clasped
to another
holds time together

one crying baby
begins the cycle

we’re born to die

we’re borne by our mothers
for months and on
their backs for pain
to die

but it’s the living
we come for

When one of us dies
we take her back into
our bodies

we absorb her
into our bodies

we take every memory
of her and make it
our blood

each corpuscle
a tiny body
representing
the dead who
live again inside
our veins


dual.

She and you
are two

generations
apart and parted
yet each a part
of each other

The mirror
the memory

of your blood
and her breath