Grief

GRIEF
Christina Hile

Cornbread and milk. Flowered
aprons. Baking soda baths for
the chicken pox. Sleeping side by
side on sheets that were hung out to
dry on the clothesline.

Whether you grieve simply or with
great force, you have to wade into
that big piney creek, strewn with oak,
hickory, and wild crocus thick as
fiddlers in hell, on your own two feet.

If you would wake again, you have to
drink from the river where Shadow and
Darkness stand guarding your memories,
spears clenched in their fists, lonesome
for the likes of you.

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