poem

The first week of grief- by the numbers

One: large box of chocolates

Two: the hour of the morning in which you will always awake, plauged by fresh sorrow

Three: large boxes of lotion Kleenex

Four: thousand dollars in funeral expenses

Five: living children keeping you alive with their aliveness, yet all the while suffocating you with their neediness

Six: children you were supposed to have; perfectly 3 girls, three boys

Seven: days, months, years; it never changes and you are always gone.