"Grief" - A Poem, by Stephen Dobyns

Grief by Stephen Dobyns Trying to remember you is like carrying water in my hands a long distance across sand. Somewhere people are waiting. They have drunk nothing for days. Your name was the food I lived on; now my mouth is full of dirt and ash. To say your name was to be surrounded by feathers and silk; now, reaching out, I touch glass and barbed wire. Your name was the thread connecting my life; now I am fragments on a tailor's floor. I was dancing when I learned of your death; may my feet be severed from my body. "Grief" by Stephen Dobyns, from Velocities. © Penguin, 1994. Reprinted with permission.