I am in the middle of a wake
a paper weight holding down
the pondering, wandering thoughts
of a man who commuted suicide

in the magrins
people write their sorrows
in a dialect I recognize
but do not fully understand
I read them
because they hand them to me

it is not my sorrow to take
I have no right to it
but it is their sorrow to share
broken off into shards
passed hand to hand
in hopes the sharp edges
may dull in time

I will hold each shard given
warm them in my hands
dull the edges on my flesh
before I return it to the teller
So that they are one step closer
to a picture that no longer
hurts to touch