For Carmel

your sober black suit is dignified, beautiful discrete

your creamy face is smooth, slightly swollen as if the tears have blown you up

your darkened hair, beautiful and alive, overwhelms your face

your wounded eyes are lost as if, even now, you can’t comprehend the enormity of your pain

I want to touch you and hold you

I’m afraid if I put my arms around you I’d feel the empty places where he was

you don’t seem bitter, never said why me?

as if he was a gift you could not deny

of unravelling sorrow

you said it will always be the first thing you think of in the morning

the last thing you think of when you go to sleep

his birth-death will slide between

you and the joy of any future birth

of his birthday and your birthday

(giving birth to your grief have you given birth to yourself?)

you won’t mark Christmas or New Year

or your daughter’s birthday

without him like a fume in your heart

you said the grief would rob your days and nights forever

and cheat your body of its joys

old-fashioned calamity has struck you like a knife

these are griefs our mothers knew and their’s

now we have been taught only to expect perfection, our illusion of control

you are stronger than you know

you are stronger than you know you have become

I have not felt your acid in my eyes

I know its sting will rinse      water grinding sand

until the memory is small enough to hold in your hand