And maybe my little PSA has well and truly gone off
the rails, maybe I look like that man in the memes with the red thread
crisscrossing the bulletin board behind him and pointing to his head
like it makes his behavior any less insane. And isn’t that just the way grief works,
the metaphor of it, a horse galloping through a desert, simple arc
of a rotting apple falling from a tree, or rather the rending of garments until
they are just fabric shreds on the sidewalk anyone could step over
on their way to work or to school, to a lover’s apartment
or maybe to get high with friends and forget what loss is. Lately,
my father has been thinking about death, and he stays up late,
screwing his eyes against the weak light of his computer screen
to write emails to his children explaining why and how he wants to die
alone, and I have to wonder why it is that every loss I’ve had has been in peony
season, that sweet spot when spring nudges its head out
of the ground, around when everyone is dressed in green and pretending
they’re Irish, just for the day, just to have something to celebrate,
but this time, it was Easter Sunday, 1 a.m. when your house caught fire,
and I imagine smoke thick as a fist hung in the air, and you
could not get out, not through the door, not through the window.
The fire had come up the back then went around the front,
like any standard, unimaginative intruder. The fire department said
something about the wiring. The dogs, maybe, chewing on electrical cords
until it was easy enough to make a spark snap into flame. The dogs died
too. This is not a poem about blame. I wouldn’t know how to write one.
I am asking you how. How do you blame something as random, as undiscerning
as fire? And your son’s wife is pregnant, and she’s due in October, when the leaves
turn the color of burning and I wonder what you thought when you realized
there was no version of your story that didn’t end horribly. Your voice
calling to your dearest on the other side of the door, the last they heard
of your voice, which was always so calm and collected screaming
I can’t, no, I can’t get out. Loss empties the room.
Smoke fills the hole you’ve left behind.