You don't think
it's going to happen to you,
she says,
you think it only happens

to other people,
to people out there,
strangers, or friends
whose loved one

has died, and you
are just an on-looker
to their grief;
then it happens to you,

right out of the blue,
like someone
has dragged your heart
right out of your breast

and dangles it there
before your eyes.
She looks at her hands,
turns them over,

stares at her palms.
Other people's grief
is like an echo,
she says,

but your own
is a loud scream within
that vibrates
along your nerves

and in your head
with the words louder
and louder:
they are dead.

She looks out the window,
birds sing in the trees
out there, the sky
is an odd blue,

the sun dull
as if punctured by a pin.
You can sympathise
with another's grief,

but it doesn't really
get to you,
doesn't dig deep
into you and tear out

your inner works;
it may hurt a little,
may tingle along nerves,
may unsettle,

but when it is yours,
when it is your own
deep down
gut wrenching grief,

it's as if someone
has torn you open
and pulled you
to pieces, bit by bit,

day after day,
month after month;
and just when you think,
maybe, the wound

will heal a little,
a word or song
or sight of a photo
or such and it's

back open bleeding
and sore and deep
and you don't weep,
you utter a deep

primitive scream.
She sighs,
looks at me,
her eyes dark,

yet empty,
yet full like a dark
uninviting pool.
I miss him,

she says,
miss him
like a limb
amputated roughly;

like my heart
has been ripped from me
and is held before me
just out of reach.

He was my one,
my reason for being;
now he's gone,
and I am undone.