The Quiet Things

The Quiet Things

They said grief was a river.

But it feels more like salt

staining the edges of everything,

Your hands,

the windows,

even the prayer beads left on the table

like, they, too, gave up counting.

Last night,

the wind moved through the house

as if it had something to say.

You almost asked it to stay,

to tell you what the walls had heard

when you weren’t listening.

There are altars everywhere now,

the kitchen sink

with its chipped porcelain

where the faucet leaks, slow as confession,

the cracked door

letting in a slice of light like a blessing

you aren’t sure you deserve.

You keep writing their name

in the margins of books

You’ll never finish,

like the act of writing

might call them back,

or at least make the silence

less still.

And when the moon comes,

thin and restless,

You wonder if she too remembers

how she once drowned herself

in the darkness,

just to feel holy.