Inosculation:

 

First, let us acknowledge

the depth to our lichen and fungi

entwining thoughts that span years – did you

know dear a lichen can create soil from rock?

appropriate for my heart that met yours

made whole at last, I think we forget

across the milky way of years

that your flesh and mine cannot know

where one begins and the other ends

 

Second, as I stand here before your absence

in the ground (pay heed children,

 two die when one goes)

family and friends behind pale

shocked as my right hand holds the soil

any moment the freefall into your new home

I know this is as much about my passing

as yours even though I am the one breathing.

 

Third, if I can find the courage

in that bed we bought thirty years ago

I will roll into the emptiness and hope

in filaments none of us truly understand

to touch and heal us both

spend nights alone with dreams

of the days we spent sharing sunlight synthesizing

events into food, eating in out of body experiences.

 

Fourth, with one heart now, in blood

that flows and that does not,

doing double the work two shall speak

with a single voice and through the spread

into children and their children’s children

see the forest, a single contour of difference

that supports so many who have never met

and yet connect through the underworld

structures only mutual time can erect.