It began while the honey still sweetened our tongues.
Snowflakes umbrellaed the garden flowers

as the hand of God waking us from our slumbers.

​

Outside, the birds are returning home in

flock, afraid someday they might not live to

own their wings
if all that remains of the sky is bloodshot.

​

In the bathroom, the water envelops my

scars
and memory unbuttons into a freshly dug

grave.

The body re-mourns the past where a coffin

​

is a pathway for a new beginning. On TV,

the autopsy
reads George Floyd died of cardiopulmonary

arrest.

​

Another says he trailed the wind’s feet when

the breath became
too short. If you ever paddled a canoe in the

face of a storm,

​

ever psalmed a requiem for a dead brother,

ever watched a bird struggle against the wind

until its wings become broken umbrellas,

you will know how calm is the burden

ushered through the mouth of a gun

than the fist of another man.

​

In the dream, candlelights keep burning on

the skin of darkness.
Floyd unfurls as a garden rose into the sun

and slumbers

into the night as sphinx without its wings.

​

In my mouth, every song sharpens a knife

for the body
swollen on too many loss stories. The origin

of grief

ends as a mirror into missing memory.