This is what you owe the dead."
Again and again.

Tendons stretched and strangled.
Face poured flesh from head.
Family's ties are mengled like
mother falling out of dead.

This is what I know:
Blue faced efforts that fail to reveal the color of her shadow.

My sense caught in a stone's throw and cleaner slates that keep track of all the baggage I tow.
Scrape wisdom of the tomb.
Early morning scars from masks shed in favor of never, or is it forever?

mourning lost to secrets I'll never erase.