To Harness Your Grief

Scrub the forgotten area beneath the window sill

Thank your fingers for making such a clean crease along the fabric of the shirt you washed 

Inhale lavender and chamomile

Notice you can still do that 

If you’re unsure of when day passed to night and back to day again, just go anyway 

Pack her poems in your bag

If on the drive tears well up and spill out greet them warmly 

The assumption is children find joy in every day things because they don’t know better

But I think it’s because of how easily they cry, they’ve not spent a lifetime trying not to

Walk straight to the ocean

Stand on the smooth rock the waves are trying to swallow

A shiver will escape you

Giggle at the sound of your surprise 

Sink down and sit, legs straight out

Calculate if the tide is coming or going

Flirt with death

Waves that crashed on your legs reach your chest then your neck

Get so close to her she can smell your skin 

And then stand up again 

This isn’t how you go