Halfway North

it’s the ritual of the envelope/ of the return address/ of your address/ of the stamp

the card I will send to you is a time traveler, you I hold like a tiny beacon

for a moment while outside darkness like a stray cat curls around the house and

Sheila wrapped in a parka dispenses mail and snapchats and a peculiar brand

of social services like Fireball Friday when we are all feeling it but now

in the 4pm dark and with the snow howling down the street and threading

through the bare trees she drops off catalogs and credit card offers

and even a lone Christmas card now that

the slick election pieces are trash and the die has been cast

while I still have you my friends I send this cardstock to you, first a tree

is sacrificed to paper with ink laid down and photos it’s an offering

an affirmation that you matter after these long years –

you who rode up and down with my eldest in the hospital elevator over and

over while I wrestled with death and

you who wrote me a letter from Lawrence University

to tell me you lost your socks and you who mixed me rum drinks when I was

seventeen whose pants I was wearing when I nearly made it

to the bathroom and you who ate liver and onions and then birthed me and

you who made me a mother for the first time and more than I knew and

you who told me that it would be okay when it was finally over

and you who I am telling now that it’s okay and it will be more okay later

and you who sat next to me on that Lake Michigan beach and kissed me

right before I didn’t choose you though perhaps in hindsight I should have and

you who see the black dirty bones of the world and you who hold all of its pain

behind your ribs and you who insulate yourself like a pearl and you who carried me

to the station wagon when I had whooping cough at five and I thought

I was dying and you who call me out of the blue and whisper to

my long ago self that I am worthy and you who fell asleep

alongside me under the pool table at Elk’s Club and sped with me

sleeping through the dark woods to our warm beds

I bring all of you now speeding through this new dark with me our

threads indeterminate the best we can hope for is warm beds and secret

toast because I know perhaps i’ll not even finish this line maybe

between this ritual of sending and receiving you’ll

get all the answers while the rest of us toil in winter twilight so I just

press hope into this missive and send it with Sheila

across the impossible Jeremy Bearemy void to you while you are yet

while you are yet here and can

hold my hand I can

hold your hand we can

hold hands through this darkness

curled like that stray cat around the embers we keep burning

against the snow and the wind howling

this deep winter’s night

I remember you.