whether the air around me     is filled with you
or if perhaps you are ground
and the roots     steal your faces
for sweetgum leaves in spring

or     if when I feel the weight of living
     cloth pressed across my lips
the heft of the paper grocery bag
     if this is the final weight
the only touch     and you are quiet
in your dark universe
as I will be one day too

when you were cut     from your mother
was she lost to you then

my daughter picks resurrection lilies
in the backyard     and perhaps I've lost her already
already I trail behind her wake
and the flowers are sickly sweet

how to be sure
about the slugs     the watermelon buds
the stars     which may have already burnt away
how to see in the dark     what might be left