it's not that it snuck up on me
like the stairway climb to my father's room
me with a brown paper sack of get well cards
made by the delicate hands of children
him dead.
It's not like that, grief.
you feel it coming
or I have at least
two, three days
up then down wondering
why I feel this way
knowing what I don't know
it eases down
not like terror
not like being jolted from sleep
not like the burning in your chest
before your heart shatters
not like nails dug into the
dirty ash tray on the side door
of the Buick, bearing your weight
hard away from the center line
pressing your 12-year-old feet
on imaginary brakes from
the back seat.
Grief is not like that.
It isn't the warm explosion
that starts in your thighs and
climbs to your cheeks,
dry mouth, clenched hands
immobile. That is still terror.
Grief isn't still; it moves,
finally.
