DANIEL LEE

AUSLÄNDER

I saw the worst minds of my generation

think they were the best,

and then realized I was one of them.

I stepped into the shower.

and as the water turned hot and rained steaming

down my skin

I thought,

this is my second shower since my grandmother died.

Then the black and white film flashed back

to the first memory I had of you,

which was also

in a hospital.

Nothing can touch me here,

love knows no bounds

save those socially unacceptable

and in the quietest of shadows

I say my last goodbye.

my light

i hear your voice as i swim through the water,

letting myself be swallowed

by the religion of wet darkness.

i move myself forward,

and with each stroke succumb more and more

to the rising of the tide.

here poetry dies,

better ash than dust,

victim of its own hollow

biography.

laying in your hospital bed

only light cast warm glow of

electric christmas tree,

at last at peace.

tranquil.

this is how i will remember you.

with a subtle smile almost whispered

onto your face,

hinting to me more than anything else

that there may be something more.

i like to think that you made your peace.

later i touched your hand

as you lay in your casket.

it was cold,

and i saw you then as you had been,

so much of what i now see

in my own reflection.

You were radiant,

the horizon lifting its mighty chest to the sunlight

and screaming,

"HERE I AM! WHEN I LOOK, LET ME TRULY SEE!"

the last time i spoke to you

did not feel like the last time.

my tongue did not have words,

it had weeping.

it was then that i realized

you were more awake than i.

i think of her

when i shouldn't.

and then just as smoothly as she came

she is gone.

and so are you.

i have no one.

no one to hold and know as my own,

no one to squeeze and feel and taste as my own.

this does not end.

you're never ready for another final farewell.

it all happened so slowly

and yet so suddenly.

fire,

it doesn't even feel as though you have left.

i kiss the moon in a rippling mirror,

avé maria,

i am never ready.

i finally touch the silence.

it reaches out

and goes on forever.

none of this is worth it.

i see what i might become,

it is time to change.

the ocean takes a breath,

its lungs opening up for a huge gasp of the bursting sky,

the earth mother gives a placid sigh

and turns in.

here poetry dies,

better ash than dust,

with beginnings like any other,

i rage and cry out and steal from myself

why do i do this?

i give up to you myself.

this

is not the end.

i can't believe you're gone.

i just can't believe it.

this is how I will remember you.

with a subtle smile whispered onto your face,

and the passive tao

in full circle.

but your eyes were not fully closed,

and from where i sat

i could see two wet glints

cooly observing

the still calm of the silent storm.

i saw you then a saint,

transcendent,

better ash than dust,

moving majestically through grace amazing