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.