"You See Her Face Now"

You drift where I cannot follow,

white ghost of night,

keeper of every unspoken goodbye.

She breathes somewhere in your hush, I know it.

My mother, soft as dusk itself,

folded into your pale devotion.

Perhaps she hums to you,

the same tune that once steadied my storms,

a lullaby stitched from love and the scent of fresh linen.

How cruelly lucky you are,

to rise through her light each dusk,

to graze the hem of her eternity

while I am anchored here,

hands clutched around the echo of her name.

Does she speak to you?

When you bloom full, do you glow from her nearness,

or from all you keep of her?

I imagine her hand passing through your face of light,

rearranging your scars

as she often brushed sleep from my brow.

I press my eyes against the sky

until tears mirror your silver skin,

searching for any shimmer that could be her.

But you are the one who gets to see.

You, serene spy of the afterlight,

swaying in her orbit,

knowing her as I no longer can.

And still,

I thank you

for guarding what I loved and still love.

Even envy, beneath your hush,

feels like continued devotion.