23.5

By Heather Carnaghan

One year ago today 
the whole world pointed at a different north star.
I thought in five year plans and tomorrows
and without fail 
my sentences ended in exclamation.
Your perfect name 
was forever affixed to my plans for you.
Those mountains we'd climb
together
were permanent too
like the paint on your nursery wall.
How shocking
isn't it
that one year can teach us
to see the tilt in the axis, 
the humanity in a whale,
and mountains 
that are no more permanent than you nor I.