Loss floats like feathers,

mowing the lawn just after a monsoon

the smell of it everywhere,

stuck just under a button up shirt.

Mist curls 

cloud-float

 &sunsets truth into skin. 

Dark skies are night skies but all the time.

& don’t you feel it?

Once

when the clouds parted

the mentzelia raised their heads toward the sky

in hopes

 the sun would come out,

instead dim constellations. 

Stars become just remnants—

like the voicemail left on my father’s phone,

white lilies on his rented casket

entangled in hair and when a breeze from the window blew them

off

floated like

feathers.

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