Mourning

A poem about decades of unremitting mourning for the same person: my mother

Photo by DDP on Unsplash

I pass through; through these thick
curtains for, perhaps, this only time:
I cannot push them aside and
walk back from where I’ve come.

I come to visit you only in my heart:

because my chest is oppressed and suffocates, for
how far away your eyes are looking now and
incorporeal your hugs are.

I come to visit you only in my heart:

for my eyes strain in wanting to enter into yours
one time more and find no relief in that stone,
soiled for the bygone years and cold with no blood.

I come to visit you only in my heart:

how incapable is my hearing if
silence is now your voice and,
in my memory, it lies soundless with no echo.

I come to visit you only in my heart:

perpetual and damned love,
unavailing, looking for your light, with no concrete you.
Love that drowns me into mute despair, while

I pass through; through these thick
curtains for, perhaps, this only time:
I cannot push them aside and
walk back from where I’ve come.