for Angela Humphreys Staley 1965-2016

With sunset comes rain
and the sky glows with it.
The sky is bursting with rainlight,
it sweeps the court of people.
Even the giant moths
circling the overhead lights
hang it up for the night.

And for a while we stand together
against the fence, our fingers
hanging from memories like hooks.
The moon closes
what the sun begins.

On the empty court,
puddles of moon light
and tell me Angela can’t be smiling there
in that light, in that bright,
trembling light, and we won’t
turn the lights off on her,
not tonight, not ever.

for Angela Humphreys Staley 1965-2016

Last summer the doctors found
a gray smudge on her lung
and I found the clouds
puffy at the edges like scabs
after swimming all day in the lake.

And I know scabs aren’t the color of clouds,
but how lucky I was
weightless with my wife
floating in the lake
trading words for clouds.

I can keep you in perfect peace
as you stay close to Me
underlined in her bible,
lightly the word funeral
in the margin.
She was headed all the way back
to the initial breath
like a bubble in reverse.

My brother called to say
he unplugged her life support.
I blew some sad, small words
into the phone
and was barfing
in the yellow grass
before I hung up.

A month later in Hawaii
they stood by the ocean
off the road to Hana
where the wind for a second
wore her ashes in silhouette.