Poem for Infinite Returns

for R.D. 1935-2011

This is when the sun is more
than just the sun, but I cannot
give it a better name, and you,
whoever you will become, will relearn
the sun as brighter than a penny.
A penny, that if tasted, tastes like blood

and the beginning of blood. R,
this is me speaking to you:
a poem where your chair will bare
its bones to an empty house.
Mellowed light will stain
the curtains gold. Weightless,

and un-hurting now, your hands
won't disturb the window's lace
to show the neighborhood your new
and vanished self, standing, not standing,
as you hover moth-like
on your ghost's difficult net.

And wherever you are now,
I'd like to know the color of the sky,
because I will not imagine it here.
I will not make a metaphor of you either.
Instead, in this poem, you are yourself,
waving goodbye on your way

to the Cumberland river,
pulling your boat behind your car
like a boy and his roan horse
off to split the warm wind
with their teeth and chests, wet and white
below the sun's burst fist.

- Melissa Cundieff-Pexa (from PHANTOM)

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