It’s on the days
it flashes by in feeds
that someone else has left us;
on the days
we remember
those woven into eternity,
a tapestry of the never-forgotten;
on the days
we debate over
who’s lives really matter;
on the days
we forget it all
or cannot stifle the
memory,
so we suffocate.
The end is always present
in my flesh and in my blood,
like the burgeoning beginning
behind each closing eye —
a familiar tingle up the spine
when silence falls
around me —
but it’s ever-presence
doesn’t make each passage
any purer.
No, it’s all just slowly staining me
like the wine within the glass,
licking up the sides
until it spills.
So I grieve again,
I grieve. For what is earth
except to teach us
how to grieve?