Resources for Writers

Never Stay Where Grief Is Free (excerpt)

Disappear: a transitive verb, fear its object. You
are not the young bodies left among deadfall.
I am not the parents who raise photos like empty
pockets of tears, yet I choke back wonder,
fear what will happen if you abandon your light
to the mourning dove and the swallow.

Grief is a country, its anthem a swallow
of vinegar and fear. Please let me sing you
beyond it borders once more until light
marries water, prison bends truth, hands fall
from hips unread. The night never wonders
what happens when the boulevards empty.

No small wonder, grief: my body empty
of light, thirsty and calling freedom. I swallow
the song of you, sleep where rivers fall.

2 stanzas & envoy of a double sestina
Full poem at
Anti-Heroin Chic