Sestina for Rob

I dreamt that you came back
and it wasn't until morning
that my smile, with a tear,
shattered and broke
the lie, the truth, the lie
of your lips. Bulging and blue.

I remember the kisses that you blew
above the birthmark on my back
like a target. You would lie,
leaving traces of your lips, every morning, on my back, until the day you broke routine, leaving traces of a tear.

The rip and tear
of oxygen fighting through blue
lips. I remember the promise that you broke at that moment. I remember back when morning was just morning.
Now I understand it was a lie;-

the promise of forever. The lie
that crept, unnoticed. Tearing truth from my tear from my fear, every morning, morning, mourning.
Life blew
in and out through tubes and needles, back on that morning when both our bodies broke.

They broke the door. They broke
your mother. Broken spirit. When they let you lie there, rigid and exposed on your back.
Yeetgadal yeetkadash, your father made a tear in his shirt, saying Kaddish and covered the blue of your eyes, with his hands. Mourning

the dreams that died with you that morning.
They said it stopped. Your heart. And Mine. It broke into a million tiny pieces and now the blue of the sky and of the ocean, is a lie.
The traffic lights won't stop and through a tear, I see time dancing on a clock that won't turn back.

In a coffin. In the earth. On your back.
Yeetgadal yeetkadash. I blew kisses that tear through the earth. And land. Where. You. Lie.

Natasha