14th

After his death autumn leaves lost their glow 

spending dinners hardly touching heaping plates 

defying laws of nature by staying awake until the sun kissed the stark night sky.

After his death the frozen air felt like the only time I might catch my breath 

billowing, rolling from my throat like ghastly clouds of smoke,

At Thanksgiving I felt as if my heart were bleeding out on the table

yet we still smiled and took pictures with silver tears welled in the corner of our eyes. 

We pull out the photographs, though

after his death the pictures feel like paper cuts on my already paperthin heart 

Memories feel like salt pressing into a wound

I know the good times overwhelmed the bad yet 

When I think of him all I see is the sadness of his absence, the lack 

Of his presence at our table. 

After his death I went to the water where we used to spend our time as a family

I cursed the ground and the sky and the god who might be hiding behind it 

For allowing me to know such great incredible love and for taking it all away. 

I realize now after many moons and months of breaking 

my grief is in part the love growing so profoundly in my chest that I never got to share with you 

In part it is in the constant blaring space of your absence,

A siren making itself known in a library, 

So I dread waking much like I dread the fourteenth of November

The anniversary of the day that all the love in the world died.