if the earth could

In an effort to feel closer to you after you died,

we started going to mass,

dipped our fingers in holy water,

pressed our palms together

as we recited the Lord’s prayer until

the words lost all their meaning. This

is how you give a word meaning:

you ascribe a memory to it,

like, James Joyce will always be a porch,

my mouth fumbling over

bourgeois

and your patience manifest there.

If grief were a dichotomy it would be

remembering and forgetting,

like, the sight of your hands clasped in your coffin

reminisces of them moving always,

the effect of the illness that did not consume you

you were not your illness you never will be.

When we remember we remember your kindness,

your capacity to love outside yourself how

you loved

every person you met,

even those you hadn’t yet met and

never would.

If the world could feel

it would have felt your passing like the aftershocks

of an earthquake,

unlike the raw ripe absence of someone gone too soon.

You ended premature still full developed

a peach off the tree the day before it would reach perfection.

This is where we remember:

something you would have said, something you would have liked someone

you would have loved to meet. A place you loved.

Anecdotes: remember when—? Here you are

now, encapsulated in the written word.

If the earth could feel, it

would ache in the presence of your absence, dully,

the way the body remembers a touch.