Grief
sits beside you, but doesn’t
draw you a bath or mix
a margarita, put its hand
on yours, rub your shoulders.
It runs off to the beach once
in a while but always comes back.
At first you want to lay your head
on its shoulder, find comfort
you know has to be there somewhere,
but it’s hidden deep in the bottom
of a closet or on a shelf
in the basement behind cans of paint.
The search a scavenger hunt
with no end and no prize.
*
Robin Wright lives in Southern Indiana. Her work has appeared in ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Loch Raven Review, The Beatnik Cowboy, Spank the Carp, The New Verse News, Rat’s Ass Review, Fevers of the Mind, and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her first chapbook, Ready or Not, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
Such a finely wrought poem.
Thank you.
About grief, this poem is all too true.
Love this line: …hidden deep in the bottom
of a closet or on a shelf
in the basement behind cans of paint.
Congrats on being #3 in the list of most read poems!!!