God of calloused hands, and splinters,
and wooden bowls full of dinner,
I returned here with morning,
wanting to return to that last evening
we spent together, all of us
in a shadowed room,
our sorrow true as winter.
It was your winter—
your limbs like graying trees,
your body like this garden—
its dirt and worms were in your eyes.
Everything was falling feathers,
everything was embryos
spilled from broken eggs.
How did Spring come so quickly to this garden?
The birds are hollow bones and light and flight.
The leaves are a touch on my face.
I see the wounds of your body replaced
by roses that open with a fragrance
as green as sunlight echoed from wet grass—
each sorrow a petal, a caress.
You make pain itself into the lightness of Spring.
You make doubt into birdsong, the sky into grace—
the last meal each meal—
each sight into taste.
