Tag: poetry about loss
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Unpacking
“Unpacking” began as a meditation on domestic disorder and the rituals of aging, but quickly unfolded into a layered memory of childhood scatter and paternal absence. I wanted to explore how objects—laundry, drawers, pirate chests, suitcases—carry emotional weight across decades. The poem resists sentimentality and instead leans into the tactile: folding, spreading, shedding. It’s a…
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J’s Sky
“J’s Sky” emerged from the final moments I shared with someone I loved deeply. I wrote it in the hush that followed her passing, where grief had no metaphor—only gesture. The poem resists sentimentality and instead ritualizes consequence through pared-down language and elemental imagery. The sky becomes a container for ash, not answers. I wanted…
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Manual for grieving a house blowing away…
Manual for Grieving a House Blowing Away…” emerged from a moment of quiet devastation—watching my home unravel not in fire or flood, but in the slow erosion of memory and ritual. I wrote it as a guide for what cannot be saved, and what must. The poem resists sentimentality and instead offers a liturgy of…
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January Dream, 1987
January Dream, 1987 emerged from a dream visitation that blurred grief with peace. My mother, who had died decades earlier, returned in the dream not to ascend, but to sign love into my palm—wordless, tactile, and precise. The poem resists sentimentality and myth, honoring ambiguity and consequence. It’s an American sonnet that turns on ethical…
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Shedding
Shedding began as a meditation on the rituals we inherit and the ones we invent to survive grief. I wanted to write a poem that honored the quiet choreography between father and son—the way they speak through thermostats, boiled peanuts, and Dolphins talk. The “fortune cookie” structure emerged as a way to hold fragments of…