with gratitude to Tania, Jeremy, Dan, and Beth
I.
You’re awake at 3 a.m.
for no reason except loss
has screamed from an unknown street
and slammed into your body
and splayed you onto cement
wet with oil of brokenness.
II.
Later that morning rereading
a favorite story—death
the centerpiece—you cannot
make it two pages before
you sob so hard you worry
you’ll shake your body broken.
III.
That evening in a sunroom
with two friends and their dogs,
states away from the accident,
conversation and distance begin
their work. You need
not carry your grief alone.
IV.
It takes a Sunday morning
in still another state, another home,
waking to birdcalls you cannot name
to lift the weight of grief enough
so your chest can rise again—
a long, slow steadying breath.
–
Nathaniel Lee Hansen is the author of the short-story collection Measuring Time & Other Stories (Wiseblood Books, 2019) and the poetry collection Your Twenty-First Century Prayer Life (Cascade Books, 2018). He also edits the bi-annual literary journal The Windhover.