I can’t get the image out of my head
of when I held you right there and watched you die.
Upstairs in the back bedroom of our house
where we’ve lived for many years,
your last gasping breaths.
I see it again and again,
as the breeze blew in.
The room I still don’t go in at night because I see you.
Your transformed dying face will recede with time
is what our counselor said
who we walked to every monday holding hands
slower every week with your breathing until we had to drive.
But then only 2 months after you died our counselor died.
All at once, her empty office with no light on as if her work was done.
We are all always so close to not existing at all
except in the confusion of our survived bys, grasping at the echoes.
Today our daughter asked me if maman swims.
I told her “yes she does, and that’s probably all she does now.”
What was you is now borne across waves, evaporating.
Singer, multi-instrumentalist, and scholar facilitates a captivating, fluid exchange between Western and South Indian musical traditions. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 17, 2024