family

My Daughter

Exquisite shells cover the floor!

I step barefoot on pieces – small remnants of your last visit

and childhood tokens

diaries written in your cryptic hand that remain hidden in your cupboard

all was thrown out except these daunting shells

folded notes inside boxes from your world within your room that once

revolved around a small fluttering existence, this lazy Valdarnese death valley

where you learned to thrive.

Your shadow hunts me in your absence and talks to me It takes hold of my shoulders and shakes me.

I whisper in its ear and take its hand

but it has no body

I leave it treats

guiding it back into the real world but it gets lost.

I reach for its child hand but you have gone away.

Will you come when there is none else to be found?

when the water is low, when the tide turns?

Will you smile from afar with transparent eyes

your voice remotely strained,

in the unfinished space where your footsteps are real

and you laugh and whimper in high tide?

You let go of my hand.

there you are and I

will always be waiting for you in the car listening to “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”

Another song in the night

across the Atlantic.