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That Year
You succumbed to translucence in springtime
while we described your disappearance as calamity.
First smoke over a field of clover, then you went farther
to where no light catches, a memory outside of light,
the sun left to cast its vigor on slow-falling dust motes
circling furiously with an upswing of the hand.
September brought the Santa Ana winds and my birthday.
You were already a greenhouse gas when I turned ten,
candles burning down in the store-bought cake,
frosting, thick and physical, overwrought with sugar.
ZYZZYVA (#73, Spring 2005)
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