The Blue Dresses
The dead sometimes
rise up in us like grass,
like weedy yellow flowers
with sour stems. You said
they reach you, roots moving
in night. You dream
of everybody colored
by a strange veil.
-
The dead sometimes
spread within us, wide
lawns of blue dresses,
long-sleeved and all
the same shade. There
is always and never
a face there, I think of it
like a fact told by
somebody else.
-
The dead sometimes
step out for a moment,
step out of our hearts.
I call her back, as all,
to ask: how can this body you long
loved keep thrumming,
how can it be worth it,
why would it keep living?
as if these oily parts that keep
us pulsing had been doing it
on purpose.
