============================================================================= Tomorrow is Another Chance at Comfort ============================================================================= Running hands along the row of weeds and tall grass behind the fallen trees. Walking the line where cultivated care meets chaotic growth. The sky is a dim maroon on black where the stormy clouds are not hovering still in a patient dance. Your smile cracks under the weight of leaning flowers and dying sumac. The taste of your love washing away through a strainer. I do not remember how it feels to be blind like that. I see from the corners to the center in spiral patterns. Your images are blurry and cropped where your hands speak other languages. My fingers once knew those syllables. The pear tree fell but it still looks green on one side. The black air of the basement is not a foreign entity, it caresses those who know its shapes and forms. Stepping up the stairs my feet are erasers wiping away the old wounds. Washing the windows and putting up tasteful artwork. Watching birds on a wire. Erasing the empty spaces and filling them with some semblance of order. Running along the edge of the field where the chain link fence stops for a moment and the ridge falls away into endless descent. Falling into light. Stretching out like a mountaintop highway along the spine of the world, endless, buses taking everyone I know with me to some place we will never arrive at. Just staring out the window at the bright blue sky turning dark and maroon between stormy clouds hovering. Running my hands through the weeds looking for flowers. Floral clips in natural hair. Looking for a centerpiece. Something for a pedestal better left empty. A phrase for you. Longing grows slender and large from this hole in the heart.