Missing Pieces

I miss being able to cry
it used to come so easily
but now it feels like some
distant memory, tucked away
with the old baby blankets,
my grandfather's WWII shirt,
and my mother's ashes
Maybe I will pull them out
For my daughters' weddings

I miss the feel of her face
Under my hands, her collarbone
under my lips, the way she looks
as I stumble towards the coffee pot
and makes me laugh until I cry
when we are alone, but together
at 2 a.m. and fighting sleep

I miss ninety miles an hour
through the dark and mountains
to rub a back, listen to the familiar
galloping horse of new life waiting
to arrive in this place we call home

I miss my girls, and the comfort
of an old trunk in the corner
Chevron stripes on the bed
yelling at the cat to get out
of my room, and the innocence
of not knowing what it felt like
to insist on things that feel
like torture in the name of living

I miss the opportunity that
is all too slow in arriving
to wake and sleep and live
in one place, with one set
of bills and dishes and family
to stop kissing goodbye
at airport gates after three
to five days at a time
and more contact with
ex-husbands than each other

I miss what isn't and should
be, and I miss what I want
and what isn't, and it keeps
me praying on skinned knees
because bandaids are cheap
and useless things in matters
of the heart, when you are
still kneeling in the shards
of so many shattered things