Leafblowers in Heaven

for Andrea 

by Megan Falley

How can it be ten months

since I touched your body? Your face—

which, a decade into loving you,

I had looked at more often than my own.

How I loved my life with a view.

Am I still a person you know?

Can you grow and change where you are?

Have epiphanies like you used to call me

in from the other room for?

You made the most of it.

Discovered so much

sometimes without leaving

bed. Magellan of the mind.

I miss you most when I crave advice.

When I’m confused and need

the pentagon of your exquisite clarity—

how you’d always make about five

undeniable points.

If you were here,

you’d remind me that I am not a piñata.

That I won’t get a prize

from my own relentless beating.

That there is a softer way to open.

I told your sister I’m sad

that I almost never dream of you,

that you don’t visit me there.

She said that’s probably why—

because you know I’d sleep forever.

So instead you speak to me

in nature, or when I’m writing.

You’re not going to leave the clues

of a scavenger hunt in the dark,

in the void, in the opposite of living.

You said you’d be reincarnated

in those you loved while they were still alive.

It makes sense that your sister

is a poet now, too.

Because I no longer research how to kill

cancer, I’ve learned the needs of all

our indoor plants. What kind of light they like.

Do you know the Dracaena needs filtered water?

Just like you. I brush the dogs’ teeth now.

Sometimes life feels like solitaire.

I miss you most when I am using the leafblower,

the only thing in our house

you loved holding as much as me.

For your sake, I hope there are leafblowers

in heaven. I am making the most of it.

Never want to think of anything as a chore,

or obligation.

I imagine you would love one more day

in traffic, in an argument, in the rain.

In the cold and glorious rain.