I have wandered through your Grief Land and peeped
in all the windows of your loss and been
astonished by your furious clarity.
I have paused where I stood in your rose bed
and felt that knot swell my throat, prick of thorn,
brimming in eyes. I had to turn away
but couldn’t stop myself from looking back,
a child with scab to work until it bled,
with tender bruise to poke and test. Still there.
Still there, the ache still soft and ripe, still fresh
as when I first palmed its weight, first closed it
in the crisper bin in my heart’s ice box.
I am a voyeur to scenes I know too well
and could not expiate with all the words
in unabridged dictionary of loss.
I want to ask you if you ever stop
circling these rooms but I know, of course,
that you do not, you will not, you can not
any more than we can quit visiting
our daughter’s descent through hospital nights
to the beeping of unanswered questions.