Even as I breathe, you are
always more than simple respiration –
sure phrenic nerve and diaphragm,
intercostal muscles and thoracic cavity
engage the ocean of air you left behind
and left to me, left me.

I know I am enough,
but when I walk tide pools,
fold laundry, remind my husband
the definition of metaphor, the scent
of your hair finds me.

To miss you is to wander lost –
again. Living or not living,
you remain inspiration
in its simplest form.

Ache propels the lungs’ elastic recoil,
alerts more than tissue and chest wall –
alerts that deep place where feeling
begins. Grief is love with nowhere to go.

 

Melanie Perish is a gender-fluid crone. Her work has appeared in Sequestrum, West Trestle Review, The Inflectionist, The Meadow, Sinister Wisdom, and other small presses. Her collections include Passions & Gratitutdes (Black Rock Press, 2011), The Fishing Poems (Meridian Press, 2017), and Foreign Voices, Native Sons (Single Wing Press/Blurb, 2021).