On Brokenness

Texas breaks the waves at the barrier
islands. A sweat, the news
of your last breath. September,
the last azalea. The sweet blossoms
caught on your CT scan, their
shadows cast in black and white,
asymmetry. Slice of a broken body.
Then the talk of heaven, breaking
it to your children. Holding
their small hands, waves of gold
in your daughter's hair. Blooms
of regret under your eyes. Holes
in the last sweater you wore, where
a moth broke his teeth. You were
breaking up like a ship, your flotsam
breaking against my jetsam. You were
breaking rank, falling into water,
a whole sea of the broken
rising up to meet you, your
last breath no more than
a break in the clouds, the eye
of a hurricane, the single eye
of God through which we all see
our brokenness, the blue above
our heads, the sun doing the work
we couldn't do ourselves. We
turn into days. We pray. We huddle.
We break, again, doing what the living do
after we lose someone we love.
We break again.