A Spell to Banish Grief — Saeed Jones
Only when you wake to a fistful of pulled hair
on the floor beside your bed and, from a glance,
can guess its weight, when you study dried tear
streaks on your cheeks like a farmer figuring out
where the season went wrong, when a friend calls
out your name three or four times before you know
your name is yours, when your name fits like clothes
you’ve suddenly outgrown, when there is too much
of you, too few of you, too you of you, and the mirrors
wish all of you would just look away, when the clocks
can’t feel their hands and the calendars begin to doubt
themselves, when you begin to agree with the glares
from the mirrors but your reflection follows you around
the house anyway, when you catch yourself drunk
on memory, candles lit, eyes closed, your head tilted
in the direction of the cemetery grass, yellow and balding
above what’s left of the body that birthed you, and you
try to remember the sound of laughter in her throat
and fail, only then, orphan, will I take all my selves
and leave.
