Stillbirth: One Month On

Memorial flowers still absorb our silent cross-eyed stares.

(What is this? What is this, even?)

Sympathy cards pile on her dresser.

Crisp handwriting and broken words.

(There are no words when there is no life.)

So much stolen that the words go, too.

Meals feralize. We eat all. Or nothing.

Books cannot distract. (The crossed eyes, taut, refuse.)

TV–never compelling–now even worse.

Prayers surround us, unanswered:broken steppingstones.

A few more could not hurt. But they (may) change nothing.

We cannot touch each other.

The ramrod anger stiffens so; there is no bend or ease:

No reaching arm, nor hand of comfort.

Father, mother, daughters–none can hold our own hard sorrow.

(Do not, please, prop yours unthinkingly here even for an instant.)

Work lies like forgotten knitting. One day we craft. The next–indolence.

(It is absurd how little truly matters. The world lies: to claim value in the worthless.)

Our teeth unbrushed. Our unkempt, haphazard hair trimmed in the dim bathroom.

(Who can brave the Southern beauty shop?)

No rest is found in darkness. Nightmares abound, constant and grim.

(Except one sweet reprieve in a garden sculptured with stark metalloid poppies.)

Even the most obtuse pity our brokenness. Impelled to help, nevertheless

Sensing the ridiculous in the grand gesture, so worthless with its words.

This known, they are simple and quick. (Unrelenting.)

Repeatedly they push the stuck and damaged buttons of our broken hearts.

Daily, students press their warm faces to mine; insistent touchstones.

(The whirring cameras document their dogged reaching beyond my statuary.)

Kind questions and hugs in the acquaintance-filled grocery store,

Like spider webs flung over the Grand Canyon–

perhaps (someday) shall lead us back to the known familiar.

 

And we may find the people we were before this devastation.

Before the raging. Before such sorrow.

 

Before we fully knew.