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Gone

You have faced the final storm,

and now float, high above the seas,

guiding fellow sailors,

your last words, Goodbye, my love.
The days have begun to lighten;
the nights are open windows.
I turn the soil for a vegetable garden:
tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant.
Rhode Island Reds appear
scratching for worms

with gnarled, yellow claws.
My grandfather, a blacksmith,

is here, too, from the dead,
a stubby Philip Morris

dangling from his lower lip.
He speaks to me, in Polish, about happiness.

Catherine Connolly (July 7, 1969 - April 5, 2012)