Tending the Shrine, Two Years On

               for Noah Langholz, 1991-2013

Sky blue origami cranes
hover in vigil
over your portrait.

My place is here
tending the shrine,
warding off the creep of time,
keeping fresh the traces
of your wit, the footprints
of your travels.

I perform my ablutions.

I finger the cold
soapstone heart,
kiss the cracked seashell
and marathon medal.

I dust your album,
open to a boy
with a handful of grasshopper,
a grinning teen
atop a sailboat mast,

a student home for winter break,
gaunt and haunted
as a refugee.

When did the end begin?

Like a scrim it shades
every picture,
each moment captured
nearly erased.

Takeaway

In my dream you
burst out the back door
hell-bent on your plan
lay out rope grab ladder
but you cannot
do this you

vomit
……..sputter
…bolt

from the garage
across the yard
sprung loose
from demons’ grip you

………heave
shake
…spent

for hours you cling
to a dim slip
of love still tucked
inside you like an amulet

then hold up your arms
like you did as a child
let me hug you
back to life

you cannot
take away
what I gave you

in my dream.

Susan Auerbach is a novice poet who returned to creative writing in midlife after a long hiatus. Since her son’s suicide in 2013, much of her writing has been in the key of grief, with several poems included in her memoir, I’ll Write Your Name on Every Beach: A Mother’s Quest for Comfort, Courage & Clarity After Suicide Loss (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2017), and on her blog, Walking the Mourner’s Path After a Child’s Suicide. Her poems have also appeared or are forthcoming in Greensboro Review, Literary Mama, Third Wednesday Literary Magazine, and the Altadena Poetry Review.