Is there still a Betty in this new life?

Still a mortuary of roses, a canvas of starlings?

Still silken teabags filled with dead wasps?

My dreams are tri-level houses, a different brand of headache in every room.

I carried the garbage to the curb, placing my bare feet gingerly on black ice.

Is grief still as grand as the blue whale-sized embalming table?

Is love that ballroom hung with Monet’s water lilies where I succumbed to morning

     sickness?

Is there space in the small town funeral parlor for a blue uterus the size of a boxcar?

I loved Billy, but only for his wooden leg.

I loved the mortician’s children for their access to the mortuary.

I loved the paper trees, but only for the moment sunset lit them on fire.

Is there still a Jesus language on the lips of talking birds?

Is there a Betty, speaking Italian if the language of the dead is Italian?

What holy trinity is dreaming the dreams I’m dreaming?

Is there a beautiful nostalgia like a breeze lifting the purple funeral parlor curtains?

Is there a Betty gathering the flotsam of the dynamited Buddhas of Afghanistan?

A Betty, reading the bones of my skull with her small hands?