© 2013 Bonnie Nish

Bonnie Nish is founder and Executive Director of Pandora's Collective Outreach Society, a charitable organization in the literary arts based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is also Executive Producer of the Summer Dreams Literary Arts Festival an outdoor festival now in its tenth year. Bonnie has a Masters in Arts Education from Simon Fraser University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Expressive Arts Therapy at the European Graduate School. Published widely, Bonnie's first book of poetry Love and Bones was launched into the world in September by Karma Press.

Saying Goodbye to My Mother and My Lover on the Same Day

We have become indifferent
the winter is cold
and we can’t seem to find the door in.
From the outside
everything is untouched, breathtakingly
forgivable.
We cannot draw ourselves away.

There is fire here
the kind that burns a long time.
You arrive an apparition.
Naked, tall, hairless,
your empty eyes deplete me.
I have become comfortable waiting,
broken I slip so easily out of place.
 
The largeness of my loss, your fear
eclipses the fragmented puzzle pieces
we hold.
Our hearts are heavy as death,
heavy as the moment
I buried my mother.
I say goodbye to each of you
know the dirt of regret
kept in both my pockets
haunts me still.