WILDFLOWER

Crash!

I can't gasp, all air crushed out of my lungs, by the force of my tears.

Grief, disbelief, at you being gone.
Not you, not so young.

Just the week before, you nagged me about crossing my eyes and dotting my t's.
Please.
Goddamn it don't bug me about the way I write the news!
Please,
Don't let it be you I'm hearing about on the news.
No word, no warning, except a headliner tease: crash!

I can't gasp, all air crushed out of my lungs, by the force of my tears.

Grief, disbelief, at you being gone.
Here one day, not here the next.
I'd give anything again to perfect the way I cross my eyes and dot my t's.
But all I have are my memories.

I curse
Why?!
I cry
On the heels of Easter Sunday, did God call you home?
Why?
I scream, in a broken record of cursing and crying, cursing and crying, cursing and crying.

I can't gasp, all air crushed out of my lungs, by the force of my tears.

Some say God needed another angel,
But we needed you here.
Your friends, your community, your little girls.
Our Santa Latina.

Why did God pick a bloom from the wildflowers?
The very flowers you took your two girls to see,
In a valley of barreness, rarely, spectacularly dotted in Easter yellow,
Rarely so full of life,
Always blooming, giving the gift of your your love.

And now, staring across the same barreness some time later,
I still can't gasp, all air crushed out of my lungs, by the force of my tears.

The petals fall off the flowers, like your petal fell the month before.
But some still cling tenaciously to life, vibrant Easter yellow life.
Like you in Heaven.

Our desert wildflower.

(10-06-2005)

** For my friend & co-worker, Polly Gonzalez.