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You promised me, didn’t you?
You said you’ll always be there,
You said it’s always going to be the three of us,
You said to infinity you’ll never leave us,
Then why did you?

You looked so peaceful going under,
Didn’t notice how much this world made you suffer,
Yet you always gave us your smiles,
That made you seem to shine,
that made you you.

Is it selfish of me to think it too early?
I still have a lot left unfinished,
Didn’t get my last four embraces,
Didn’t let you see the look in their faces,
When I proved them wrong.

You left us with nothing,
Since you were our everything,
I held on to your every word,
But now they make me sad,
Don’t want to hold on anymore.

You were our home,
But now that you’re gone,
Where do we belong?
With those who only came,
Only when you took your last breath?

I can still remember,
Those nights ended with laughter,
Nights I was a daughter,
Nights he was a son,
Nights that can’t be real anymore.

He asked me why,
Why I only got your last wishes,
Yet I never saw him break,
He said he’ll never be alone,
Because you gave him part of your soul.

You gave me hope,
You made me believe,
So even though it hurts,
I’m going to let you go,
Because it hurts you more.

Now you’re cold,
Lifeless and alone,
But somehow,
You managed to find peace

We toil and suffer for years
Just to be condensed into a couple of bullet points:
He did this, he did that,
He loved peanut butter cups.

All the minor details perfectly remembered
And the major ones taken for granted:
Good husband, good father, good 9-to-5 laborer
Who barely saw a dollar of the pennies he earned.

Usually our greatest hits
Are those that are never released,
The smiles tossed at strangers on the side of the road
That made all the difference.

Then it’s off to the cemetery
To seal the deal on anonymity
Since it’s hard to distinguish between graves
Despite the grandchildren’s crafts and notes of gratitude.

There are those who equate endings with new beginnings
And those who believe both are equally irrelevant,
A pompous attempt to deny
Our cosmic insignificance.

But as sure as they’re sure we loved peanut butter cups,
There must be some semblance of seamless Truth
Towards which we each continue traveling
Long after the eulogist says “You’ll be missed.”

You loved water— ocean, beach
your body warmed by the sun
sand yielded to your footsteps
cleansing salt air and against the turmoil
of living the steady beat of breaking waves

The beauty of just being

Lying stretched out on your towel
you could at leisure explore the universe of the sky
clouds object lessons in change
watch a small boy filling his pail with sand
one shovelful at a time
you applied sunscreen
you took care not to get sand in your book

The ocean asks nothing of us
releases us from whatever is binding

Against the horizon you can sketch a future
or more than one—erase try again
with a different design or coordinates

No longer possible for you

Once I nurtured you in my body with water
Now all I can give you are tears though
we are still bonded. Just not in life.

Lise Zumwalt
1956-2023

For my Granny, Charlotte (1932-2021)

A clear cup half-filled with water stood
on the table, glistening with anticipation.

Outside, light blue and purple bloomed from stems.
Charlotte’s careful eyes zoned in on the bush across
the street and waited for the right time to strike.
Early April breeze carried the lilac sweetness

through the town. She analyzed their cloy
smell, toes dug into her property line.
The bush clogged her eyes with nostalgia:
this one was smaller than the ones she had years before, that grew

as tall as her house. Those were poisoned by the Patuxent
River runoff, but these had an even stronger will than she did.
The creaky picnic table housed her tools—dirt caked
scissors and a bottle of Cherry Coke.

Veins collapsed with a snip; the wood had started to die,
but the flowers grew more vibrant against her transparent hands,
and rattled, anxious to find a new home.
“Granny, what are you doing?” A curious child called out.

“Taking your Lilacs!” She skirted back onto her property,
a caffeine skip in her step.

I stopped going to work.
Then I stopped meeting friends,
finding reasons to go outside,
eventually, time became my plaything,
and I watched my furniture and plants breathe
with great jealousy, plates and cups were carried around
and placed in unlikely constellations for the unknown observer
the way comets and entire planets are carried around
by the gods in old myths.
Everything moved and kept moving
even when I asked kindly to stop,
when I felt my veins burn and pop
and bled out on the floor
as tomorrow crept in through the bolted door.

Déjà vu is my religion,
Or, I’m stuck on a track, call it swan road;
Stories replay or resurrect
Like Christ laid on dogwood,
Or a dog fetching sticks.

I don’t know about agnosticism;
I don’t know about your questions.
I like to mind windows,
Or portholes, and cast confessions—
Shout, “Oh my God,” to the sea.

Cherry O’s, like red-lipped portholes,
Or cheery hellos, or Cheerios—
A great way to start your mourning.
She died three years ago,
In the morning.
I hear I’m a poor thing.

Neon nights
Same buzzing echoes
through every wedlock
A child and five
On mattresses
Different shades of white
Stains of
Every human liquid
A bear in his cave
Stomach curling smell
Smoke and sweat
Guilt filled forgiveness
While roaring some more
Sunrise soon
Red buzzing still
Break fast from sin
Eat from debt
Leave the six hungry
The diapers heavy
Escape only to return with less

I remember his eyes seeing more than they could,
as if the right sight might surround and slow down time,
and mine catching hold of the secret way he would
grasp to mold his most elusive possession, life.

We used to sit staring side by side on the porch.
The day’s soft, steady fade for the moon’s sudden torch
always amazed me. Such changes remained behind:
hide and seek, do-see-do creek, gold I couldn’t find.

The scene seemed real enough, until one day I saw
the light’s slight lean, as if some subtle shade was drawn,
like walls, so paper thin, they hardly stop the wind,
the sheer sound round the realm we lived and breathed in.

He claimed an afterlife in nature was his fate.
I picked the distance apart; my eyes logged on late.
The summer a never-ending sorrow weighed in,
seated, sobbing, suddenly I saw his vision:

the hills, a man’s face, silent sentinel of space.
It looked so much like him; I think his mind did win.

I can’t squeeze my eyes shut when I think about
The open casket
It grabs my eyelashes like the reigns of a horse
I try to blink onto sandpaper
And sleep on a bed of nails
Or in the world; warm that I remember you in
It’s 3 o clock P.M. and I can have the windows cracked.
I haven’t perfected the art of counting tiles on a hospital oor yet
Or telling myself you look like you did when you weren’t motionless
Pretending like I’m comfortable eating from a
Meat tray in a funeral home
Or trying not to think about how you waited for me
To walk into the hospital room
before you atlined.
Your face looks funny stretched across a memorial candle
That we don’t burn, but leave stagnant on a dusty shelf
Sometimes I look up your obituary to convince myself
It’s purple in my search history
-KM

Did you ever stop to think,
About the stars that twinkle and blink?
In the fleeting night sky,
That is filled with gleams soaring high.

Did you ever stop to think,
About the flowers that grow?
In the pits of the sun,
Showered by spits of rain
and dancing with the wind for fun?

Did you ever stop to think,
To notice the water that lingers?
Racing with the rain or shine,
Always streaming forward.

Did you ever stop to think,
The simple joys life can bring?
Every moment has a memory obscuring,
And with the right mindset,
This concept can be quite alluring.