Alice
Catherine Corbett Bresner

You haven’t saved me any words 
and I need some. Give them back or else 
release. In seasonal air the communication
unpetals revealing a furry bud. She had a habit
of buying fresh cuts on Sunday and 
letting them rot in their mucky vases. Their death 
lingered all under everything.
Space collected as objects left.
But somehow, she bravely knew, nothing. Space remained 
a menagerie of dust bunnies, and for a few
it was decoration. It was, almost, the party. 
The guests each took a ribbon which carried a balloon
which carried another, lighter element. 
There were ideas and there was dust. 
They were the same. 
The “space” we “inhabited” felt “timeless.”
I went to the birthday. Yippie Skippie. History
repeated itself in the least elegant manner. 
“Stop at the you-cut grove” you said
and I did. What was it? The thing
we were looking for, which was thankfully impossible.
All this time, gathering itself into fistfuls
of occasion. And now, on this, your death, no words
and space between their letters.