‘Think of Grief in This Way’

This spring, we’ll gather for a third time
since we first lost our forebears, martyrs to a cause

they did not choose for themselves.
Beloved grandmothers spent their last nights alone

in crowded hospital rooms while officeholders
deliberated over the what, not the what now or the how.

With one eye trained on the newscast,
and Nana’s last cursive letter laid flat before me,

I prayed for normalcy, then looked the other way.
We are not the same people we were four years ago.

Oh God, we heard our progeny cry, why,
and learned the elemental mess we must arrange.

Visions of shopping for Paxlovid and children’s
respirators in Walmart will ever be enough memento.

So like sling and stone, our freshman ballots
seized future bullets from suited assailants, and yes,

hope first forms hurried bandages for hidden wounds.
I sign the cross and mourn my days of ignorance

while leafing through the psalms.

              Grief and David’s wild burn within us.