lines of isolation

grief catches in my hair
I am an artist, a poet
so it is only fitting
that it must pour out
somewhere
on the canvas of me

so it appears
as hieroglyphs
the parenthesis
around my mouth
remains
resistant,
brackets the sorrow
calling in age

11 on my forehead
watermarks
the gate to the dam
of a runoff
from faraway mountains

my teeth sculpt
the years long clench
in the angle of jaw

veins on my arms
on my temple
rope and nest like snakes

It will take time.

It’s only been a week.

and the heart remains light filled
sun shining through
cracks where
it was dropped and shattered
so often I thought I’d need
to reconstitute it with milk
like porcelain,
or better to buy a new one

even pocked with accent
it beats, faithful as a drum
transparent as velum
like the singularity voice
of the sibyl stuck in a jar
along with her love everlasting
long after her body disintegrated
long after him

And through all this
I know as much colour
as she understood
more than I could have
smooth of face
heart intact