Kristen de Kline #248 Goodbye 5

it's the English words you lose
first, in the card you sent for our

boy’s birthday you write in a curious
mixture of upper and lower case letters

English and Spanish words   hearts and
flowers etched in Indian ink like a frame

I listen to your words over the mobile
each syllable slowly crumbling, an Eagles

riff sneaks in from the nurse’s station
he says: you're hooked up to the nines

I watch another helicopter hovering overhead
with one of those giant buckets of water

they dump on flaming houses   it’s true
we never get to say goodbye quite the way

we imagine it,   the things my son tells me
I did wrong   - they're all true - and more 

I turn the air con onto MAX    go out the back
where concrete pavers burn my feet 

and cry 

your ashes blow over the veggie garden you
carefully planted      palm trees, bend double

whatever happened to us