I'm still here

We carry your love
on our tongues
in our veins
feel the force
stirring beneath the surface
of the tea we drink in your name.
We carry your love
across time and space
(England,
Ferndale,
Lopez,
Alaska)
smile in the memory
of your rhythmic words:
"The Nose Pinching Stench
of the Humpback Whale."

Sometimes, though,
walking home
alone
in the dark,
soggy leaves underfoot,
blackened streets
glistening in dense
diffuse moonlight,
I see again the doctor's eyes:
grey-blue and unfathomable,
your cry crawls back
into my chest,
rises up
as if from the grate
where rain disappears
gallons at a time:

"My family.
What will I tell
my family?"