Grief no. 3

You once asked if I would sleep

on your grave. It’s a moving scene,

I admit. How I would crawl, eyes raw

and infant pink, lips aquiver. How I would pull

myself atop the mound scarred with shovel

thwacks and press my face into the earth

packed like spent coffee grounds. I would let

the loam mold my form, wear my shape

like a family crest. I would pretend that we were

in our bed and explain my cold and lonely

by you stealing the duvet. The shifting

of the earth beneath me would be you

rolling over. I would play for myself

the soundtrack of your snores and night wuffles.

I would know that the dead don’t stay

still or quiet. I would imagine your fingers

tunneling towards air. If you emerged,

horrible and hungry, I would give

myself to you freely. I would consent

to be consumed. The least I could do.

I would not mourn how you deserve.

Do you see? I look and look,

but you are never quite there.

You are a call that stops ringing the second

I get inside the door. You are a message

in sand at high tide. You are a robin’s first

flight in my guts when I see a blonde head

or bones in a ravine, an architect’s model for life.

I carry crumbs to lead you home. In dreams

I follow, branches fray my hair like cobwebs,

burrs sequin my socks. A shadow, a boot print.

Are you there? Is there anything to bury?