by Caroline Healy

You buried me late one night,

in the damp darkness

of acidic soil and broken earthenware.

I’m tossed about with

pallid worms, twisted twigs, dried roots and jagged stones

where I collect my thoughts and stain the silence

with ranting recollections.

I strain but can’t hear a sound above me,

Not since the dying of your padded steps.

I claw until my nail bed bleeds,

Until I feel the jagged stones, the dried roots, the twisted twigs, the pallid worms,

and then nothing.

My fingers break the surface

and drift listlessly in the cool air.

A cry for you fails to scale my throat.

At some point I decide

that my sand castle confinement,

though infantile and crude,

is richer with soil and spite,

than the death I shared with you.