the ghost of you. 12:42p. 8 may, 2019

i look over at the ghost of you
visible
audible
i can see you clear as day
never from this perspective before
the hammock came after you died.

i can see you in your blue hawaiian shirt
the lighter bits matching your eyes
i can see the shape of you at the grill
hear the click click of the tongs
  as you turn the meat
the ice in your glass as you sip your drink
the smell of cooking food
the sounds of the mechanics of the grill.

i want to invite you to share my hammock
to feel it bow beneath our combined weight
to feel your body next to mine again.

Knowing you would be appalled at the thought
  of my feet near your head but
  physics outweigh preference.

i sigh, and smile
imagining our continued negotiations
that have outlived you.

a notebook open to the page where I wrote this piece.

10:01p, 15 april, 2019

I could not have done this yesterday.

Nor the day before, or the
one before that, no.
Even though it meant that whatever
Whatever it is growing rapidly had extra time.
I could not have done this yesterday.

I pulled myself together and made a plan
and altered that plan the second it needed be.
I kept my head,
channeled my fear into anger
Not rage,
Anger.
Anger, while focused, can be productive.
Rage, always focused, never is.
Always is destructive..

I could not have done this yesterday.
I only hope I don’t have needed to anyway.

5 april, 2019. 6:46pm

My heart. Oh, my heart.

I was hunting around in the vast artbeast mess of a dining room looking for A2 cello sleeves for the new cards that are drying. What I found. What I found is my orange Filofax that has been missing for four and a half years. The origami envelope that Gary made to enclose Sonnet 145 for me in its back pocket. Addressed to “my Glitter Girl”. I am overcome, overwhelmed. Weeping, shaking in my grief.

Also in its depths: a line from Hamlet, penned by someone dear I cannot remember, fallen whiskers of cats long-dead, a collaged card with a photo from 1959 with both my father and grandfather, a note from my stepmother about the ApoE4 gene which my father has a double version of, a small version of my own handprint to be made into a photopolymer letterpress die, fortune cookie widsom from Arthur Ashe, hastily written notes about multiform PVCs and success rates of ablation surgery (70%).

This is why the bar is set so high.