For Jay

 

Yes, talk to me

of grocery coupons and the kind of tea

you drink when it rains. All the little things that make

up our lives, not the bricks but the thin mortar that holds

them in place. For when grief comes

it does not overwhelm like math or the crowds in Times Square,

but maroons me on an island I have not been to

and strangeness burrows in,

seeping under my skin, under my eyes

until all I feel is fatigue, larger than the common fears.

It takes a toll and exhausts in a different way,

like stars too numerous to count: the vast

constellations that comfort lost voyagers

but are impossible to comprehend.