is across the room
welling in her eyes
as she thinks of her country so far away and burning
to the ground
every night

grief seeps in and
under our skin
burrows tunnels in our bed sheets
mapping the places we tried to forget

grief
he lives on the tip of my tongue
a language I can’t speak, but mindlessly hum

grief is the anchor in my grandfather’s ocean
the sky and the sand,
the captain to his call

grief,
spreads like vines
a yawn across the bus
stitching together our string-thin lives

grief has touched us all.