Mourning

I miss you most when I am happy.

.

When dark rain pulls itself up over of the ledge of the horizon,

heavy with thunder and the leniency of a storm,

.

When I turn down into the riot of an unfamiliar market alley,

and for a span, find myself adrift in a reef of color and sound,

.

When my firstborn sits on the kitchen counter

where I cut green peppers into long canoes,

and speaks breathless of her book,

long hair crowning her wild animal mind,

.

When the moon nudges me awake in the middle of the night,

inviting me to sit with her here on the cusp of the desert

and listen to the ocean echoing in from another life,

.

When, pausing near the sandy shadow of water

I have just flung from my basin, a bird with blue feathers

regards me with a long look I don’t understand

and I spend the rest of the day savoring the moment like a secret,

.

When walking home alone and life unexpectedly

crosses the road to embrace me, holding me by the shoulders

while she whispers the faintly slurred words, “Yes, yes! Like this…”

before winking and lilting away with a song,

.

Not when I feel burdened by the sorrows of the world,

things broken, unsaid and unborn,

the roads that fade underfoot while I stand

clenching my map white-knuckled in the tall grass,

.

Not then,

.

But when I am breathed open enough to rest

in all the sweet places you are slowly leaving,

the rooms that you have only just slipped out of

and that bear your scent still,

.

Then my happiness loosens and the tears flow with abandon.