I’m getting far too deft at elegies,
at details that would force a poet’s hand
beyond the scope of frequent remedies–
the holy dose of pills, the strict demands
of alcoholic legacies. I write the hurt
that lingers afterwards, the useless words
that will not bring these poets back, the curt
unwieldy passions that will go unheard
by ghosts I can’t convince to visit me.
Why would their restless spirits come and play
beneath the raging of my grief, no glee
intact when I am speaking of their days?
No couplet can replace the lives now missed.
No poetry is worth a severed wrist.
Photo by Garrett Coakley
