For. . .

There is a summer of memories locked beneath a thought of you.
Past the honeysuckle that clung to the fence in our yard –
beyond water and summer and winter and love.

I’ve written thousands of poems and used devices
to craft words into sounds from thoughts I could
not express because my belief was these were
things that could not be said.

My entire life I’ve felt like a shadow hovering
above my body – watching life go by,
which I could not feel because
I was not really alive.

I finally wrote about and relived the experience
of my father dying, and as I understood why I
could not say the things I tried to feel –
I slowly felt myself descend
ever so slowly,
piece by piece,
back into my body.
“How good it feels,” I said as I tried on my new skin,
“to have a body again.”