bardo
hot-bread sky spread with jacaranda silk

petals hang in bunches, cool tender flutes

two weeks ago these trees were struggling to flower, wettest

November on record, two weeks since the world fell into

water, cold came forward, a season missed its cue
maybe if we get down on hands and knees, crawl

from room to room, carry things in our mouths, on

our backs, we’ll be able to connect with how it was

one dropping tears onto tiles while vacuuming, dreams

stretch holes between the living and the dead, one

launders the issues of the other in purple and fawn
you become an ice king, melting inside, weeping

eyes pale as a sky empty of rain, hair turned angelic

silver, you write a letter to your daughter, bronze-wing

snaps its way across the front of the house, camps in

a tree outside the window, hoots its owl moan from

dark to light and back again
we’re awash in the bardo, the forty nine days

prayers, relighting the candle, its mango scent

a kind of shadow