A Glimpse of Starlight

Loss:
Let that word roll like a heavy marble
Into the toothpick tower of my non-feeling;
Let me scratch at the silver map of my memories
And find it printed underneath;
Let it lodge like a cinnamon candy on my tongue,
So sweet, so unbearable all at once.

Ends like a hiss, starts like a lie,
Sounds a little too close to how you’d describe
A girl in the woods who can’t find her way home.

Why must we lose? Why can’t it be more added to more,
Both-and, age without wrinkles, youth without folly?
(Have you ever baked cookies and forgotten the salt?
Do you really want an ocean that doesn’t sting?)
I am afraid if I scratch away the silver, it’ll disintegrate
And leave me alone with tacky text and moldy paper.

Starts like love, ends like a kiss,
Rhymes with the symbol of all of this:
A place where losing lit the lantern of victory.

Let that word sit on my tongue so long it dissolves
Like all the tears I finally let myself cry.
Let me keep scraping off the fool’s gold
And see that it isn’t the only word underlining everything.
Let all my pretend protections crash and crumble
So I can hold and behold unafraid the solid smoothness of my
Loss.