Exit Song

Grandma I sit here twisting and wringing my hands as if they are water logged—

That they might pour out

all the things I’d meant to say

The pen however does nothing

But punctuate your absence

And I am, all of a sudden, acutely aware of the mechanics behind it:

My hand, the pen, the action of

Pushing it down onto paper

furious to put it all down

Put it all down, put it all down

The pen however does nothing but punctuate your absence

The pen however does nothing but punctuate this:

I’d succumbed

To the usual convenience of putting it

off

Putting it off, what a vile, damning phrase.

The pen does nothing but punctuate

All the I cans—

I can write you tomorrow,

I can write you next week

I can write you

I can write you

I can write you

And The pen does nothing

but punctuate

Your effortless command of it,

the whole of my girlhood, steeped

in your attentive cursive

As if you were writing my life

As if you were writing my life, before

I could.

I sit here, and neglect to wring out the syllables necessary- what do I write you Grandma?

What do I write

What do I write you,

I’m here! You’re loved. Put it on paper, put it all down

Write you about the pennies in the bottom of the flower vase, the lilacs managing

to hold on a day longer

Despite my never changing the water

The garden

The garden was scoured over by a swarm of Japanese beetles

Much like the ones you’d caught

In a cup of soap by the rose bushes, after we’d counted the cardinals in the tree lines

Past the salt lick

where the deer could be seen from your bedroom window

And All the scrabble tiles

are arranged

so as to announce

You’d won.

Grandma, tonight I will turn on

every last light

in my apartment

Every last light

so as to not to strain my eyes

Only my heart,

Only my heart

the illumination of which cannot

bear your absence,

but you’re here

Still writing my life

Still writing my life,

because our conversations

never ended.