What we talk about when we talk about loss

are the catastrophes: walls collapsing

and the terrible flood. What we forget is what

we fail to detect: the line opening like an eye

from one end of a dam to another;

a startled look and the averted vision

at a wrong word at yet another wrong time.

Loss is an ever-growing thing. The same

is true of how we win. Everything

woven through with its own unmaking,

a storm brewing silently in an apple,

that shattered net of clouds. Cracks in walls

rocket to a big finish in the ceiling,

one arm going suddenly numb, the final

poem of a life left unfinished on the page.

Particles, elemental dust, magnetised to form

new planets and suns with or without

a creator. Seeds of illnesses make camps

along bloodstreams, preparing for that war

on health. Nothing to be considered within

diminished vistas of hope and reason. Nothing

reconsidered, how it flows into an embrace,

revivifying every word and gesture.

Who says we cannot compartmentalise

heartbreak, break it open and employ

its parts? Grief to inspire tragic songs.

Anger stored for potential storms.

What to do, then, with resignation—how

to use it and what is it good for?

Stars faint from lack, freefalling into

deep graves of themselves, from which

no light may lean away. The future

revealed like an afterlife, which we fight

to occupy and exit with equal

courage and delight. So what if justice

is unfair? Anger is a chair. Tears

are just for show. The tenderness of doubt.

Happiness without. Nothing prevents

nothing from passing through.

Nothing, after all, to try; nothing,

after all, to do. Listen to what I’ve said.

If the truth agitates, perfect! If not,

sing along—this number is for you.