Poetry

Grief

Grief is a river with a ruined name,

winding its way through rooms where wires

spark, splinter, and go black—

the TV screen shrieks and fizzles out,

a sudden burst of static like a gasp

from the throat of the world.

Outside, the rain comes hard,

a fist on the window,

a mouth pressed to the glass,

the flood rising in every gutter,

every crevice where something once lived-

and now it’s all silt, all softening,

the way flesh gives under the pressure of time.

Out on the lawn, the wind tears at the trees,

each branch snaps back,

a whip of green against the house-

you can hear the sap weeping,

you can feel it, in your own veins,

that slow drain of sweetness,

that quickening into rot.

The garden floods,

each rose drowning in the earth,

petals torn and scattered,

and the statues crumble,

their marble mouths open,

as if trying to speak,

as if to say, this was never meant to last.

Even the stars short-circuit in the sky,

the night tearing itself apart

like a dress ripped at the seams,

until there’s nothing left but dark,

nothing left but the whisper

of your name, still echoing