All Things Beautiful

Breath that beats back against stacking atoms.

Doors closed, street lamps flicker into silence,

but I remember the wind.

We don’t huddle near bodies, we

move in places where bodies were,

parting the emptiness with quick feet.

I remember closed spaces, uplifted by numbed

noises that condense into honey in our ears.

It wasn’t ever the noises, but silence in tandem.

Clinking glasses, dancing shoes on pavement,

and rouge lips collide. We touched all things.

“Leave no stone unturned” became a euphemism for longing.

Ghosts rise above the city, blood paints the streets,

"without" is used more than acceptable.

But I remember the brush of waves.

Hospitals are like hotel rooms, except

visiting hours are reduced to zero.

Wrinkled faces veil the sky that turns black.

A pandemic of emptiness, furrowed over brows

that ache for all things beautiful,

I know the pain of not saying goodbye.

Empty hospital gowns, cracking fire blesses the sky

and curses the earth. The soil turns to charcoal and

the weather grows teeth.

We used to touch. Black screens become diamonds

and fill empty spaces in living rooms.

But I remember now, not all things are beautiful.

And now, colliding atoms become like paintings in museums.

___

As always, thank you for reading. Any and all tips are deeply appreciated :)