Balloons

Balloons

Grieving, I believe,
Is so delicate, and fragmenting,
Because it is
The understanding that
We are bound to love,
All ways…
Deeply,
Profoundly,
To wear a widow’s wedding band
As its tourmaline dulls,
To walk those rooms in which a widower
Could not stop crying, pressing his palms
Into the floor
And loathing the linoleum
Because it reminds him that
His love and body
Are real,
Wracked with the sorrow
That we only withstand because
We are forced
To continue
Cherishing,
Remembering.

Children send letters,
On balloons,
Into persimmon twilights,
Watching the words
They dare not say–
But write instead–
Drift towards the heavens
That look so cold to them…
To heal the hurt
That crusts over
Like marmalade on the jar’s rim;
They love ruefully,
Bungling with the buttons
On their shirts
Because a parent
Used to dress them;

We feel grief because
We are saying goodbye
To the moments we live,
The seconds,
Third glances,
Final embraces,
The feelings, thoughts,
Farewells we’ve yet to accept,
That dawdle alongside us,
With untied shoes,
Long before Loss picks up her child
In a minivan;
And then,
The heaving of a broken heart ebbs,
Tarnishing,
Like a silver teapot,
Until Longing polishes it alone,
When a dog loves unconditionally,
Or a paramour plants praise like
Crocuses in snow;

The orchestra swells in tragedy…
The conductor weeps, too,
Knowing the song must, inevitably, end,
So she loves
Until the final note’s echo
Joins the balloons,
Letters,
And every airy and feeble hope
That our hearts
Would hold less.