Your Dead Cease To Love

Her inverted whispers stand in the rain

like a dog, waiting to come in to the hollow house, tail

motionless and cold. Then she fell asleep, yellow

cotton sundress melting down her chest and arms,

her legs, sap on papery bark, constellations forming

across her face and a newborn sun crying,

crying over her brow, light spilling into her closed eyes

and the resonating room, slowly stilling. She

slept while the sky wept tears of compassion

upon her cheeks, her hands, her thighs. And clouds

disfigure their faces with black paint, while day

with night, fingers woven like ancient baskets,

walk to the bed and lie down, covers unfolding

blooms of butterfly and hibiscus, opening

and fluttering away.

Her hair grows long in sleep, a Rapunzel seated tenuously

at her tower window. In sleep her hair grows long,

too long to be seen or heard, like watching your parents

walk through the sliding doors and into the airport,

while you, alone, open the car door and sit down,

waiting to hear the click of another door, before driving away.