Elegy at 18

If you take an object from a scale, it is lighter.

How, then, can an absence be so heavy?

Your loss is stony ballast dragging me under.

From now on I will shoulder a calendar of days

months, years, decades leaden with your loss.

Those who questioned your pronouns during your life 

face a new grammatical challenge in your death;

how to describe you in the past tense.

I cannot do it yet. You are the epitome of the present continuous.

I am certain your pirate smile will still flash around the corner;

your velvet eyes meet mine. Denial shimmers on my road.

Aquaplaning through my days,

I refuse to see the crash I know is coming.

I may have only been your teacher, but in my mind

my mother-arms have held you since we met.

I have been so proud of you I can barely speak.

If only you could feel them; if my wings could enfold you safe.

Guilt fills me with demented rage that has no target but myself.

That is not true. There are also those who so often insisted

people like you can’t exist. Well, now you don’t.

In the trail of your death, their silence is ear-splitting.

Their startled eyes slide away from mine and I see their mirage,

the way they swerve.  It is their own past that makes them tense.

I know, soon, I must confess the outrageous truth.

I will correct myself and say what we have been swallowing:

“you were, you were.” But today, our fierce, sweet and clever one,

be present with us a moment more. Stay with me, my darling child,

and let me love you for all that you are.