—from the poem of the same title by Lynn Emanuel
Grief was a stomachache the hour you died
though I didn’t know it yet, grief walking the pier
with me after dinner across the Sound.
Death hit me in the gut before words did.
Unknowingness was our dog tearing at
the window screen, attempting to escape
loneliness, but failing the three-story fall.
Panic left toothmarks deep in the frame.
Grief’s heavy feet climbing the stairs after
the phone call, and me, nineteen, at the top.
I know, I answered when grief bore the news,
pain curling next to me on the floor. Grief,
or denial was my ticket to Bowie
at the Tacoma Dome, 11 August,
was the subject broached, days before your funeral.
Go, guilt sighed, what difference will it make?
Grief was the freeway at midnight, rain-stained
and oil-slick, was the car on my left making
for Exit 134, immediately
on my right. Grief was spin, was blinded
by unnumbered headlights, was the officer
blocking the exodus of concertgoers
so I could back up the exit and calm
my grief with Swiss Miss in a booth at Denny’s.
At home, grief sounded like ripping off a bandage.
Grief echoed softly off the bathroom tile.
The blue door, with its still warm nightgown
hanging from a peg, unable to keep
your death from entering, or going away.
–
Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Chaos Theory for Beginners (MoonPath Press, 2023), finalist for the Sally Albiso Prize, and Lake of Fallen Constellations, (MoonPath Press). She is the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Grant. Ronda’s journal publications include Greensboro Review, Blackbird, Sycamore Review, Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, Moon City Review, and NPR News / KUOW’s All Things Considered. She is a graduate student working toward her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop.