Grief sneaks up on you at the checkout line at Safeway.
When you spy the autumn bouquet in the orange pot
that you brought to the hospital the last day
only to find that flowers are forbidden in the ICU.
Grief rumbles along the rocky trail by the canal
as you put foot to pedal to somehow
cycle away searing memories on a Sunday afternoon.
It greets you when you come home from work
and the door bangs behind you
and your muscles ache
and your head hurts
and your stomach gnaws
and you think you should just make some pasta,
read the paper and lie down.
You want to keep that firm grip,
nod and say the right things:
yes, a little bit sad, but doing OK thanks for asking.
You don’t want to lose it in some weird,
reality-TV inappropriate way.
Like bursting into tears at the 3:30 meeting,
raging at the impossibly slow clerk at Macy’s,
ripping to shreds the next person who
asks if you are ready for Christmas.
There is no handbook on this.
It is the limp you learn to live with,
the piece that is missing,
the ache that you know will never go away.