About Grief

POETRY

by P M F Johnson

I’m not writing about grief.
Every poem is about grief.
Instead, a wind drives from the west,
haughty, stiletto-heeled, ancient
as those words from the desert
warning us, who do not wish to hear.

Our little dog taught us. There is
no calling back, not even when
still in his bed, resting like
a wallowing tugboat tied to the quay,
panting, the raw exertion of breathing.
Rubbing his ears, him lost in
the density of pain, the meds no help,
the choice made at 3 AM.

At the end, you were used clothes,
jewelry shared among sisters
and sisters-in-law, household items
you wanted us to divide, but
none of us wanted. Immediate.
In the middle of it. Echoes
in someone else’s church that raise
a shiver, become our sharpest memory.

Working through another day, the hum
of a mower cutting grass, sirens
as other emergencies go on somewhere.
The ghost who returns in the night
gives so little comfort, so little faith.
The empty wisdom that comes with loss.

Our sisters going out this afternoon
to pick chrysanthemums in your garden.