It's just so simple
To be human with
Another human with
You.

Innocence & Nostalgia

i have imagined you into
honeysuckle evenings
and
skinnydip nights

i hope you don't mind.

jacaranda purple on
my eyes and feet
singing
shhhh
go to sleep

I can see someone channel-flipping
In the room in the building
A road across from mine

I've decided he's a he
And that he is lonely.

I remember you in phrases:

“Hey babes”
“My clever baby”
“Hello baba”

It's funny.
You never treated me like a child.

But yes,
I remember you in phrases
Because without them
Your voice disappears

And I'm not brave enough
To scale the crevice
Into which the song of you slips

So I hang on to the phrases
And play them over and over
Until the tape is grainy
And warped
And you, yourself
Become the nostalgic music we shared
On the patio,
On the big, broken bed
On the lawn bounded by oak trees

To these images I attach your phrases
Instead of Eine Kleine Nachtmusic or
Rocket Man or
Any of the other tunes that once sang,
“Dad” to me

You sing for yourself now.

I've made you a symphony.

So the trouble is
There are people
Who want something
New
From me

But I can't.

Because you've only been dead
76 days and
At night I smell your hospital skin
And see your eyes
How they looked
When I knew you were thinking,
"What a clever girl I have"
And hear your voice
That's turning yellow
And powdery
Like the bare-footed
Childhood kikuyu when
Winter stroked our
Highveld garden

So you have to be my subject.
Because I'm tugging at the roots
You're fertilizing now.