SAD POEM

when someone leaves this world their energy ripples

i was on a date the other day when someone asked me if many people close to me had died. (i know, i know, not a super normal date convo, but that’s the way i like it.) i thought for a moment before saying not really and listing my step-grandmother, my grandfather, my aunt and uncle. a couple kids who i went to school with.

a little boy who in Z’s class lost his first mother recently. his mom told me about it in passing at pickup as our sons hurtled down the sidewalk ahead of us. i recognized the weight on her shoulders and pulled her into a hug before turning to sprint after our children.

all week i’ve been thinking of their family. the complexity of that grief. considering the weight of that loss and what it will mean now, and in the future.

i’ve also been thinking about how when someone leaves this world their energy ripples out. how sometimes it causes tidal waves worlds away, in the lives of people they never met.

anyway, on the date, we sat in the grass and watched the clouds and put our feet in the water and looked at roses and talked about grief and loss and kindness and beauty. because it is always both. always everything.

it reminded me of a poem (below) i wrote this past winter shortly after my uncle passed away.

sending love always to anyone out there in the waves.

SAD POEM: going to that Marshalls off Fairview to look for funeral clothes

written in January, 2024

when my grandpa died my dad called 

from halfway across the world to tell me

he was abroad with his wife, i was in the kitchen

of that little studio on Bedford—the one with 

the wall of windows and the yellow couch.

i don’t remember any of the words he used

it was nearly a decade ago now—   

—the same year i let my friend live with me

when her own mother and house grew  

too heavy and i tried my hand at mothering 

for the first time. both myself, and her. 

her high school report cards 

mixed in with my college transcripts 

and letters for study abroad programs.

we tattooed our hands and smoked 

cigarettes by the dumpsters out back 

and waited for buses that never came only 

to crawl back into the Queen sized bed 

we shared for months but neither of us 

have a single memory of sleeping in.

an unmitigated disaster—the 

mothering—but not lacking in care. 

anyway, my dad flew in for the 

funeral and so did my sister and 

her lesbian best friend and i didn’t 

have any clothes to match my short 

boy hair and and we all went to that

Marshalls off Fairview and my dad 

bought me something that didn’t make 

my skin crawl when i looked at myself in 

the mirror and on the morning of the service

my aunt looked at me and said “you look 

like a goddamn boy lillian” and my step 

brother who i hadn’t seen in years stood 

like a rock in the church doorway and 

something cracked inside of me while 

some stranger was telling me something

and all i could think of was my dad as a boy 

and i couldn’t stop sobbing until my whole 

face was and red and raw and streaked.

that aunt died too—the one with the sharp 

tongue and strong hands. her funeral was 

at the same northeast church a few years 

later. she hadn’t talked to most of our family 

in years by that point. except my grandma. 

but she had come to Christmas the year before

she died and had made me try on her new 

fur coat, thinking maybe it would make me

squirm but i didn’t even think about the animal 

cruelty because i was so distracted by how 

tiny her wrists were—so i just told her over 

and over her how impossibly soft the fur was.

anyway, now, this year, this week

my uncle’s funeral will be held at that

same church. and my own sister hasn’t 

talked to me in years. and i have short 

hair again and again no clothes to match 

and instead of mothering a high schooler, 

i am mothering someone else’s toddler—

because she couldn’t and i thought 

maybe i could—and he is a deep well 

of need—like her and me and all of us. and 

it is grey and not cold for January and 

i am watching him spoon mac & cheese 

into his mouth wondering if i should drive 

us over to that Marshalls off Fairview 

to look for funeral clothes.

at the Marshalls off of Fairview, looking for funeral clothes

xoxo

B