Higher Things

Loss swells like a bruise,
inhibiting movement,

making everything that’s tender
a trial: though it’s permanent, the

loss, I mean, the swelling goes
and takes the tenderness away

even when you may want just
a little to stay. Absence, though,

can inflate like a nylon balloon
on a cool spring morning: filled

with warm emptiness absence takes you
Above it all, floats you over the impasse

that seemed impossible to cross
on foot, shifts perspective to higher

thoughts: here in this basket
of bewilderment and wonder,

you can stay with me even
a little longer than we thought.