750 Pounds of Dirt

These poems
About you
They’re a face in the crowd
Thoughts I allowed
Though you’re dead now
And somehow I live on.  

Every poem about you
Ends in dissolution
Revelation
Devastation
And yet I stayed
Until they sealed
Your sea blue eyes
Into a wooden coffin
You looking like a plastic puppet
Just a mask of makeup and lip tint.    

And now you lay
Half decayed
Half flesh, but rotting
(that image destroys me)  
You’re still a heartbeat
Inside me
Though the bruises have healed.  

Love did things.
Lies and abuse
I let it thrive
Until you died
And if you hadn’t
I would still embrace
The sombering disgrace
The bitter taste of
Of being unloved.  
But you’re dead.
You’re dead…
You’re.  Dead.  
And I am alive