grief – I Could Be Wrong

Writing is an act of recovery and self defense.

Mourning the Passing of a Poet

You distilled life to a poem
Knew what to hold
What to let go.
Like a poet only you knew
Each word you left out.

Absence carves niches in my heart
For the absent.
Memories cast light
On what I cannot see.
I mark your passing as I write.

I read back lyrics
Milled from memories
By my split heart.
I grieve with and without words.

In the end we left things undone.
The piano player drove slowly home. 

We did not sing the final refrain.
We did not read one last poem

to the ring of guitar strings.
So many threads  

bound one heart to many.
In the end we were practical.

How can you bury a life
and be home before suppertime?


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Photo Lissa Arroyo
Final line borrowed from the novel “The House of Broken Angels” by Luis Alberto Urrea