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after Mom died

and we moved to dad’s and his girlfriend’s

I figured out that when I couldn’t hear you,

when the TV got loud or the taps on your laptop stopped,

it was when you were weeping

 

sometimes your door would creak after midnight

and I’d hear your footsteps

in the hall

on the stairs

in your bedroom again

in the kitchen, maybe lost

 

years later I thought about writing a poem

but I never started it

because there’s nothing to learn from grief

 

not how to cross a desert

not how to work bootstraps

not how to blow on dice

not how to bottle up your love

and place it in the sea

for someone on a distant shore

 to find