Resting in pieces:

She has been dead these many years

and yet lives on still

in ways I cannot comprehend, not just the physical —

his lips, her eyes, their chins and a voice that drags me

all the way back to childhood

but other ways too

things like the damage done,

secrets that haunt in the cold evenings

sweats I pretend are the precursors

of flus and colds, and the linger

of a hand brushing my cheek

or a kiss on the top of my head;

lots of ways both good and bad

just like all manner of things

but not just that,

like once I saw her in a crowd

the bodies moving away and then she turned and waved

another time I smelt her when a washed sheet

flapped into my face

and if I look hard enough into the night

I catch sight of her at the periphery of my mind

and every time a plum falls from the laden tree

I hear her laughter

though I cannot fathom how or why

connections can be obvious and metaphoric

and the loved ones dead

are never truly dead

but haunt all the cracks and crevaces

from the hollows in our ears

to the spaces in our mouths

I walk with her in my dreams

and cry over words I know she has said

years after she passed

and the dirt placed on top of the casket

has had time to turn hard-edged

and grow the grass placed their like a welcome mat

so when she returns to her grave after visiting

she doesn't have to dirty her coffin —

she would not have liked that.