Grief Counselling
By Ellora Sutton
After Caroline Bird
Have you changed the way
you write your soft letters,
like m and c and s? Made them harsher,
perhaps, to offer no hiding spaces?
When you wake up,
do you have to weed your eyelashes?
At dinner do you see a thatch of hands
writhing in the vomit of your lamb mince?
At parties do you feel like
you are at a different party
or like you are stuck
in the back of the bathroom mirror
listening to a stranger howl in the kitchen?
Are your teeth too loose?
Do you understand
just how useless
your feet are?
Are you crying enough?
Measure your daily output of tears
against the dusty weight
of the deceased’s spectacles.
At night
do you press your ear to the wall
and hold your breath
until you hear running water?
Have you tried running?
How do you feel
when it rains?