By Meryl Natchez

A week past the twenty-ninth anniversary of your death
I read Seamus Heaney’s poem about the kite,
and my first thought is to show it to you.

So I stumble again
into the hole death leaves,
unfillable.

Another morning
of a day that promises
to be beautiful
without your presence
except for this faint ache
because you loved kites,
their unpredictable dialogue
with the wind
transmitted to your hand.

That hand gone
and gone again
each time
I reach for it.

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Meryl Natchez’s book, Catwalk, received an Indie Best Book 2020 Award from Kirkus Reviews. Natchez’s work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, LA Review of Books, Hudson Review, Terrain, Poetry Northwest, Tupelo Quarterly, and ZYZZYVA. She was a finalist for the Poetry Northwest Joan Swift Award and the James Hearst Poetry Award, and received a Community of Writers residency. She is a fiction reader for The Rumpus. www.merylnatchez.com.