I feel like Cleopatra, the one that the Lumineers sang about. Young, in a black dress. You in a casket, and someone else leaving muddy footprints on the carpet, because I don’t speak, and they think this is just me.
I want to tell them that I see you, in my dreams. And your breathing fades out, just before I wake. And when I wake, I feel a hunger I can’t name, from eating all the pumpkins you brought me, all through September, all through the dream.
But it's already October and a rosary is placed in my hands. I wish to tell them that the beads don't heal me as much as touching the bridge of your nose did, but I don't. So I mumble Hail Mary, as God softly leads me out through a secret back door in my mind, back to you.
God drives me 800 miles again, closer to the borders of Uganda. And in a room all alone, we put off the glass, and I run my fingers across the bridge of your nose again. Down to your neck, straighten your navy blue tie, down to your chest, sweep off something invisible on your dark and grey suit. And here in my memory, it can always be 9am, and the priest won’t have to come home at 3pm. No group of men will walk with shovels towards the garden, no group of women will come wailing at the front door. And there will be no wreaths, no six feet, no dirt pile.
And like Cleopatra from the Lumineers, I have been late for a lot of things. Late for my college degree, late to saying yes until they left. And don’t you think all this was God’s plan? For me to make it on time? for you?