The Naming of Names by Mary Lou Buschi

It's been six months since the air became all water and you drowned. I held a velvet curtain over my face and slept until a cardinal yelled out notes like a sharp needle on full speed. What should be a blood red seam is out, as the world insists I see gray and white where there were once mad colors. If you fall I will catch you. You said that the last night we stared into March I asked why my name means sorrow and regret. You said that when I cry the world becomes all river. Let the clouds be shaped like ships, and if stars are glass make them to shatter. I'll hold the smashed and jagged bits in my fist. You said, let me close my arms around you. And that is when your empty stare caused stillness everywhere.

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