Which is to say that sometimes grief is both the story & the knife,
& the road moves both deep & dark,
that upon opening the front door for the morning milk you might,
in fact, wish your life were somewhat different than it is.
The other whales took turns carrying the dead child’s body
until bone came to meet bone,
until breath met salt & then the sea.
Imagine if what haunts could be divided
into something easier to manage, a daughter towing
a mother’s burden, a child taking on the name of a parent—
the feeling of missing a step on the stairs,
or the first drink after a long period of abstinence,
the way the stars ribbon outwards
across a violet stretch of sky.