rest in peace, beloveds

“See, one day, not now, we will be gone from this earth where we know the gladiolas.”

—Aracelis Girmay

But not today. today there is no funeral

& no need for a burial shroud & a casket.

in this room we are alive—each one of us

tending the flowers that bloom on the small

earth of our hearts & watching the stars dethrone

the darkness in the sky on nights heavy with

our breaths. we are not dying yet, beloveds.

in the fleeting hours of each day we are blessed.

our bodies are boats of small joys arriving on the

shore of the world & we are blessed.

today there are fields of grass & butterflies

perching on flowers & who says we should

die now when the air is laden with the scent

of flowers, with the lushness of fields

of grass & the quietude of nights bereft of bullets

in the air. we are not dying until we watch

the last train of the world arrive here to meet

us drinking or laughing, our eyes open to the

grace of each day without the ground opening

to swallow us in this world that sometimes

aches us. today the birds are singing a song

that sounds like a funeral song but we are

not dead yet. our bodies roll into light

& the light rolls into hope & the hope rolls

into what binds us. i mean love. i mean despite

the sickness riddling the body & making it useless

we are still here in a world where there are graves

of our friends still bereft of flowers. we are still here

with & without our names depending on who dies

before dawn. beloveds, hold my hand before

the hurricane arrives & if we survive these

last months of the year we are meant to survive

other years. we are meant to walk the streets

without stepping on bones of the dead, to watch

the sky without war jets replacing the birds

despite the world breaking each time we die,

each time our bodies are lowered into the earth.