keeping you

i write this for you, i write this

for your ghost

even though you are not dead

i write this

for your memory, while you still remember

you catch yourself saying words twice

think about an answer as simple as your name and smile so bashfully

because how could you forget?

that the remote needs batteries and your home is that way, not this

twenty years ago i snuck into your closet to read your old travel journals,

the words so joined they were practically a riddle but still

the excitement -

here is my mother before she knew me

here is my mother in Tanzania, dancing with boys on dirt packed floors

here is my mother sipping whisky on a midnight Queensland shoreline

here is my mother breaking her toes on hard ice in Colorado

when you packed it all away i took the journals with me

and when you are gone, there will be lines and lines that stay will unwritten

but look!

look here you are in Guatemala with sun on your back and in Cairo clutching your purse and Belgium feeling unstoppable and Saskatchewan finding straw in your pockets

here you are here you are

i will keep you pressed to my chest and under my fingers

i will feel your paper arms and hear your good heart beating