Answers to the questions you always wanted to ask the departed:
(A counter poem with answers after Ellen Bass Inquest)https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/inquest-ellen-bass-poem

She loved apricots, not figs.  
Olives reminded her of saltwater,  
and the yellow irises—those were never hers.  

Her feet stayed clean because she refused to walk barefoot,  
never trusted the ground, never trusted much at all.  

She did not cut her hair  
because she liked the weight of it,  
the way it draped across her shoulders  
like something constant.  

The married man was nothing—  
just a name she could never forget.  

She was terrible in the kitchen  
because she never measured,  
because she thought heat would shape things just fine.  

The chickens shat everywhere  
because she let them,  
because she found humor in their mess.  

The fog over the bridge,  
she watched it,  
but never spoke about it,  
never pointed, never sighed.  

She never trusted anyone fully.  
She won raffles because fortune liked her better than she liked herself.  

She sang the same lullaby her mother sang to her—  
a tune no one quite remembers.  

On the floor, waiting,  
she thought about nothing.  
That was the thing she was best at.  

She could never give up kisses,  
never told where she found the chanterelles.  

She left too much behind  
and too little at the same time.

Passing every shadow,
He reigns the lonely nights of fall.
Through the walls I peek,
To steal a glance at him.
All alone he stand,
To warm the hearts of lost.
I met him by the nights of Autumn,
Behind the clouds he watched
The rest of the ceasing buds.
Oh! How can I not adore
The Majestic Being of the fallen nights,
Though alone in the sky
Never did he try to escape.

To the wintertide,
Sealing every soul of grief
He delivers the summer end.
Marking every beats he close from a distant
But even so at times I grief,
For this Royal Being do
Never reach the bliss spring.

Hey. I’ve noticed you, like a mouse slipping quietly into the apartment of my mind, finding even the smallest, most hidden corners. I’m okay. Not the heavy kind of fine, just…managing. I’m learning, trying to be better, to ease off the obsession unless the moment truly calls for it, to hold my questions unless the air feels open. The days blur, but I’m still moving forward. The thing is, I know you could say something better, but instead, you say nothing at all. I’m keeping busy, making friends, trying to push thoughts of you to the edges of my mind. My name’s Jay. Nice to meet you, I guess. It feels like you’re always right there, close, but just beyond reach. I’ve missed you. But I can’t be the one to reach out again, not after all the times I already have. So I’ll wait. Maybe contact will never reconnect. Maybe this is where our story ends.

a stranger walked past me today  
and I smelled you slivering  
through the air like incense  

then she walked on  

oblivious that you had been  
conjured from vapor and  
pushed into all my senses  

traipsing through me like  
dragons fire and spring lilac  
our beginnings and endings
in the span of my lungs  
dissolved back into  
breath and wind

I’ve been collecting you  
gathering up all your inkbled trinkets  
as if they were mine to collect  
as if you were whispering to me again  
the secrets of your blue-green skies  
like electric pillowtalk  
  
my soul slips like broken  
sand shards  
back  
into you  
into hazy eyed illuminations  
heartbeats rhythming through  
our pressed palms  
and you almost feel real  
  
until my eyes unsquint  
until all your splayed treasure  
has been treasured and  
I am love-lost all over

I want to be your favorite book-  
have you thumb through my pages    
make me dog-eared and worn  
fold down my corners at the parts
where you smiled or thrummed love  
and feel your fingers along my spine  

couch curled in the yellow glow of
forty-watt warmth and a heavy blanket  
open me-  
the familiar feel of your eyes  
running over my lines  
until you know me by heart  
  
an old friend that never changes  
a lover that never leaves  
your escape  
your comfort  
for as long as my pages have ink

stone rolls between my fingers like I am the earth
tumbling it beneath my soil rumbling an invocation
of shape and purpose to this tiny prayer of rock

hard dimpled-smooth skin like wings
It knows the bird dream steps of water dance
winks sideways at the sheen surface mirroring
against the wriggle of nature and fate so
that nothing snakes between shores

I whisper my opus in granite and
defy it against gravity

mountain-seed kissing across water’s horizon
aria in flight slick whizz smack of hope skimming depth
then spent sinks to rest in new shallows

impetuous ripples ring along your shore like
sapphire mischief to ebb the sand gritting
between your toes and I wait for you to
ripple through the rhythm back to me

depression feels like heartbreak at sixteen  
perhaps that’s why I always think of you  
when that unyielding squeeze starts to roll  
around my stomach like a rotting stone  

it's strange to think that of all my stories  
yours is the one that always wants to be read  
we were just sketches and outlines and isn’t  
time supposed to be the great physician

it seems timing is everything Once Love and  
ours was always perfect in the worst way  
just right to wedge you between my newborn
ribs like a thistle that sticks to my bones  
  
so I chase you like salvation  
knowing you have none to give  
and I’m always running  
in dreams