Kate Lutzner

there are terminal kinds
of grief, the kind that grinds
you away in your
sleep

you are not next to anyone
anymore. you are in a marriage
bed only there is no marriage.
only a white gown hanging
in a closet for seven
years the monday after this happened: the day you
brought paints to the park, that mix
of grief and joy.

we stood there, maybe
twenty of us and a dog named molly to
absorb what she
could.

you would have been thirty-
four on wednesday, next to my sister
at night, would have lain in that bed
with her until your hair
had fallen out
only you are still thirty-three,
you are there, in dust, preserved for the lungs
of the screaming woman and the man working to find
people and parts of people

for molly's lungs, for all
of new york, really

what of dust, what of wind, what of small particles
of bone or ear.

they gave you to us in an urn. in all likelihood, you
were not
in our urn. you were in the woman next to the woman
next to me with the white
coat or the woman next to her, not standing. or
maybe, just maybe
you will be found, whole

having turned
seven with my sister and thirty-four
on your own.

please know this: we cannot go on missing you. we
must have a sign, anything to tell us
you suffered

know we loved you
as one can only love who has known
its opposite.

our feet, standing at the edge of existence, the smell
of you in the air, the feel of you
in her arms at night and then, tonight

how she sleeps with her arms outstretched, the beauty
of loneliness

please, let us know you died seeing her
not the image you knew, but the her now, alone,
reckless even
in sleep, crossing street after street without looking

all the candles in this small life burning
the voices in the screams so audible even in this
new language

In Posse: Potentially, might be ...