We’ve all done it,

we’ve lain down markers.

We can’t remember everything,

so we recall some things

over and over until

a cairn is placed on our

memory like a now moment

saturated with eternity.

*

She had been gone a while.

I was a punk kid with

a short sleeved sweatshirt.

I saw my Ellen

asleep on the couch;

jean jacket, bell bottom

denims; her lower lip

adrift from the upper.

*

I dropped any hesitance

to interrupt her dreams.

I leapt like a flying squirrel,

draping my body over hers.

No shame. Flawless delight,

and tears bursting over her

like watering an arid absence.

We were we.

*

Markers, like paperweights,

holding down vignettes

that could blow away

with a gust of dementia.

Cairns set like stepping

stones to cross our

stream of semi-consciousness.

The gravity of grace.

*

Honoring the hippy of the long gray hair; my sister Ellen who passed away last weekend from complications of dementia