The highs are low and the lows are even lower

The highs are low and the lows are even lower.

When I was six I saw a man die.
I forgot about it for a long time.
The same way I forgot about cats cradles
and catching crawfish in my hands.
The same way I forgot about crossing the alley
to watch tv with Miranda Delgado.

From my father I learned
how to not cry at a funeral.
I can feel everything at once
and not move my face.

I do the same in other situations.
Pain or minor discomfort. Even joy.
I’ve been told I’m calm.
I’ve been told I’m intimidating.
A doctor once said to me,
“This should have hurt like hell.
Why did you wait three long years?”

Because from my mother I learned
(1) not to feel pain and
(2) never reveal the place where pain lives.

The nature of pain is that it exists in the mind,
not where the wound is made.
The wound is an opening.
The pain is an observation.

I cannot trust my mind
so I cannot trust my pain.

Grief is not a single emotion but a composite.
I will not give you an example; it would break my heart.
But I will tell you:
the brain makes room for grief
at the cost of memory.
Otherwise we can’t contain it.
Otherwise we will always run our hands over the opening
trying to put grief somewhere
inside of an old reality
that no longer exists.

Where there should be blood there is air.
And flesh, ash.

Grief is the hallway falling silent
when you expect the sound of footsteps.
Grief is the feeling of words in your ears
when there is no voice to say them.

Grief is the nursery now missing the infant
born only one week before.

The mind makes up all sorts of things, at first.

My mouth is empty. My mouth is dry.
The oracular gift is gone.
I buried it not in the earth but in the marrow of a coyote’s jawbone.
Every time a coyote barks I know exactly what I’ve lost.

I’ve grieved for you longer than you were alive.