20 Months

Hold quiet the bearing
of this grief.
Be still in your mind.

Be not the shell-shocked soldier
gazing hard at an indifferent sky
nerves zinging with the clash of
two realities
seeing his eyes wide and glazed
with fear and disbelief.
That was my face too, the inside one
grief-spattered for what remained
of our lives together
his soon to be a memory.
Explosions surrounding the shallow ditch
where the two of us huddled
folded over around the soft bits as if
we could protect ourselves
from the unbearable piercing to come.
No longer able to hear (though I did)
following with bleary sight
the slow leak of my blood
mixing with his
the leak of our lives together
into the frozen ground.

Hold quiet the bearing
Of this grief.

No one would know
the rip of my heart
nor suspect
the imposter conductor who
directs the sluggish workings of a
Frankenstein woman.
They are willing to accept my
fallen limbs
refuse to notice the
netted black autopsy stitches
appearing indelicately above my collar
threaded in a jagged Y to my throat.
Primitive butchery
age-old patching of flesh
to stem the gush of a mother’s sorrow.

Hold quiet the bearing
Of this grief.

And they will
let me live among them,
if I wear lipstick
or occasionally a scarf.

Though it would be easier to die.