Visiting

Within a period of a few years both of my grandmothers and my aunt died. So began a long period of writing poems that dealt with the issue at hand while trying to deal with the cliche of the issue at hand.


Visiting (12/10)

It should be raining. Where is that great wind?

This is all wrong
there should be a hill to climb
a lone tree
a great gaping void with a box
there should be that humid smell of flowers

I should be alone in a long dark coat tears running
I should be offering words that no one understands
I should be speaking in tongues in sobs
I should be on my knees in the dirt

I can hear trucks coming from the quarry
the road runs ten feet from here
you are flat against some other dead grave
everyone here is packed like garlic in oil
sardines in some terrible DMV

Shouldn't this be reverent? Where is the hush that stops the world?

No one threw themselves on your plastic corpse
Our faces are pink and swollen
I looked on your face and felt in the pit of my stomach
something
Why didn't I throw up?

Shouldn't someone slip? Where is the permanent grass stain?

A rain should be falling. Where is the pain of nature?

Shouldn't we all be drunk and screaming?