darling: poems by colleen cosette goodman

elegy for amy on the seventh anniversary of her death

I wish I wrote this poem for your birthday but July has arrived and so you are still here, in my ears and in my brain.

Lots of people treat you like a little girl but you weren't. You were sick and didn't know what was up. You were still a lady though, still grown. Still stronger than most. I wished the sickness could sit down with your brain and talk about it. I wish childhood trauma didn't affect the way our brains handle impulse control. But all that is gone, and all I have to do is make art and get better in your absence.

But you're still here. You lived so vividly and unabashedly. I cannot think of a brighter light. It hurts to put past tense on things, but so it goes.

Rest well.