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The Corpse Who Knew
by Aaron BlairThe thing they don’t prepare you for
is how the grief explodes in your chest,
how your throat swells shut around it,
because breathing is a luxury
that only the living can afford,
and in that moment, you have died, too,
only, no other plane will take you,
to wrap you in dark and kill the pain,
so it doesn’t last for very long.
After that, there’s the existing,
the way your body carries on
when your heart no longer cares,
when your mind is still reeling,
the questions you don’t dare to ask
scrolling endlessly under your eyelids.
Why didn’t she ever tell him to stop?
Why didn’t she take him with her?
And she will never be able to apologize.
She will always be a corpse who knew.
She will never be a grandmother who cared. 05/17/2011 Author's Note: My grandmother died fifteen years ago this week.
Posted on 05/17/2011
Copyright © 2024 Aaron Blair
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Kristine Briese on 05/17/11 at 09:05 PM This is so very sad. I'm sorry, Aaron. |
| Posted by Gabriel Ricard on 05/17/11 at 09:37 PM Not an easy read by any means, but that's where it get so much of its power from. Absolutely spellbinding and heartbreaking. |
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