I Was an Empire - 3. Lucy

When I was 21 I married a dying man.
Now, I only hold him in pictures,
and I don’t cry
because you can’t mourn someone who never wanted to be
what you imagined them.

It’s been almost two years since the funeral
and I boxed up the memories he left,
pressed them into scrapbooks,
set them on the shelf as something to treasure
but never look at.
It’s not a wound now,
not even a scar,
just an empty attic in my chest growing cobwebs
but I never have the energy to dust anymore.

Since that day I haven’t said his name,
but in quiet corners of our own home
I can call the right one, devoid of pretenses.

Other people still think he’s alive!
When the body you love doesn’t host a headstone
it's easy to see why—
just a walking memory, play-acting the part
the skin of your lover a freckled roadmap leading you
far away from what you thought was your home
but it’s achingly familiar—
I love her.

This poem was meant to be a eulogy
but the person I love is still here.
In her smile.
In her hair.
In cats greeting you at the door when you open it.
If your body is a temple
you have to worship it.
Your lover’s body is a temple,
and there is no wrong way to pray as long as you are doing it
as long as there is no ending to it.

Tell her not to accept anything less
then her own, inevitable, manifest destiny
where she takes up all the space she deserves.
Put her on a pedestal but don’t blame her when she falls,
just pick her up again.
When she rises from that grave other people built for him,
same face, different expression—
It’s not a miracle.
It’s not because you loved her.
It’s because she was able to love herself,
no more or less than anyone else does.

This was supposed to be a eulogy,
but instead, it’s just a whispered breath in my lover’s ear
telling her that she is real,
unapologetically, standing here.

It is spring.
The flowers bloom on the only land she’s ever owned,
her gravestone,
but she’s ready to sell it.

These months are a time for cleaning
so we leave the past behind together,
opening up our windows—
and I sweep out my ribcage.
I never realized just how much love was in there.

I’ll climb to the top of the hill and sing it,
even if I sound like a bird on its first wing
screaming among the leaves
and then catching the breeze,
so shocked in my own fortune that I fall
and roll, and roll.
And I’m dizzy on the side of the hill,
sneezing in the flowers, looking up at clouds.

There are no shapes that look like anything I recognize
from the fraction of life I’ve been alive.
It reminds me that when you stare up to that blue sky
if you were just to look far enough you’d see everything,
and you’re so small
but you’re still the most important thing to someone.

I take the scrapbook off the shelf,
open it and show her what I remember,
and then add more to it
each time I’m convinced it’s the end.