RAW EDGE

RAW EDGE

When the raw edge of your sorrow has dulled,
when the storm inside you settles into a quiet rain
and the salt of tears no longer stings,
you will stand beneath a clearer sky
and feel a warm, astonished gladness
that once I walked beside you,
that my voice ever mingled with yours
in the bright chaos of living. You will keep me the way a locket keeps a curl of hair—
close, hidden, alive beneath cloth and bone.
On ordinary afternoons the memory will ambush you:
a crooked grin, a ridiculous story,
the way sunlight used to spill across our shared table
like molten gold we never deserved yet drank.
You will laugh out loud in empty rooms,
and the sound will not feel like betrayal. But when the hour arrives for me to slip away,
do not believe the treason of your eyes.
My face will twist the way a candle flame twists
just before the dark rushes in;
my breath will rattle like dry leaves
skittering down an autumn street no one walks.
I may seem small, crumpled, almost gone—
a sparrow fallen from the eaves,
wings folded too soon. 

So let the tears come if they must—
they are only the river’s way of making room.
When they dry, lift your face.
Listen.
I am the laugh you haven’t heard yet
waiting in tomorrow’s mouth.