If you have died,
…all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death
and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but
I shall stay alive.
– “La Muerta,” Pablo Neruda
My feet search for you.
I must go on living, I intend to
go on living; they find their way
to where you are
awake. Wherever you burn. You’ve become
heat, the pulsing
coal approaching the end of its sacrificial life.
My soul, moldy with half-earth, rotting
leaves, marches
steadfastly toward the sound
of your voice. That which was once
your voice: an echo now: a ripple
dispatched from the first
screaming syllable of your existence.
I shall go on living. I intend
to go on living. But now my unhappy hands
hover, drinking warmth from a dying
fire. Now mushrooms sprout
in my dim chest.
My body, a forest floor, where you,
an invasive species, thrive.
My reckless heart leads, leans
forward, so far out, intending to live.
Leans past, cracking my breastbone,
home, and senses you,
still here, the magnet resting solidly,
distorting direction. My compass
points an indicting finger inward.
