FOR MELISSA/SOMEONE I ONCE KNEW

Melissa,
wherever you are
I hope the balance
has stopped spinning
downward, that your grief
does not ride you like
a spirit mounted
on the possessed
that you are not surprised
by her when she trips
you, that the booby traps
are gone in your 
landscape

I hope you still have
a home in your love
that it/she/he feeds
you welcomes you
with grace at the end
of days too empty
with work overload,
that love attends you
makes you weep
for joy

I hope you no longer
are embarrassed when
you need to just stare
into the world, voice
wound tighter than
you think warranted
that you give yourself
permission to sit
to stare
to miss planned visits
that you have friends who
make first contact, who
understand and email
or call you to check on you
I hope you have let
go of the "ought to"
and "should" of your
life, that you've
settled into "is"

wherever you are
I hope you've become
the woman you want
the woman you can
stare at and be
startled by how
well she has
survived
that something deeper
no more or less true
now seeps from
your pores
that you 
are
well

©  Valerie Bridgeman
April 2, 2013

 (NOTE: many of the words it this poem are from a note Melissa wrote to me; in some ways, this is her writing. In others, it is only mine). 

From my post, "Someone Named Melissa": 

I knew a woman named "Melissa" once; it seems we were close, or growing to be. I know from the card she sent me dated 4/22/99. I must have known her through some poetry world that I inhabited in Austin. In 1999 I was in Austin and glad to be a poet and known as such. I don't remember Melissa. I'm embarrassed by the fact that I don't remember her, because of the card I got. It's written after I had a heart attack (March 18, 1999/surgery March 25, 1999). I found it among the myriad of cards and bills and papers that need sorting and discarding and shredding. The card is so tender, so raw, so true. I wish I knew who and where she is so that I could have a 2013 follow-up to it. I post it here because she and I had a connection. Once.

On the front of the card, and rough-hewn wooden table with a bowl that has water in it and a Walt Whitman quote: "The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity."