Catherine Poem by JAY WALK

My bones creak again,
I've been living too many lives that
ask for sentinence and yet
long to be a tree and rock you to sleep
as they fuel pyres of a
thousand funerals of who you used to be.

Nevertheless, please watch me (again)
press you (again)
in ardent rain and running water despite
learning that stories with
men and mermaids
never end well anyway.

For we aren't inevitable like
mothers who marry in spring only to
end up planting fruits in Eden, nor are we
wrath embossed
in early embers of dawn.

Remember, that I've been
whistling in the woods
since eleven, with my mother's
warm blood in my veins and
this time she has whistled back.

So have mercy on me,
in the last days of this life.
Kiss my bones as we rot,
together,
in meadows of amber,
far from the madding crowd.