Grief Animal

Some days it is a pair of pearl earrings
I pick from my jewelry box
and put on like I’ve been taught.

But most days,
like today,
my grief breathes on its own,

chews through its leash—

carries me in its large mouth into
yet another ruthless month.

*

Hues of Havana
Cuba, August 2018

I can tell you how the golden hour is different here—
burnt heat cakes sidewalk streets,
swirled grit of city minutes
rush by in a cherry Chevy convertible.

In pastel facades, where laundry lines connect worn fabrics to faces
Havana beats blues back in time,
history written slow into this Saturday morning;
she beats on, ribcaged between all of us.

*

Kara Knickerbocker is the author of the chapbooks The Shedding Before the Swell (dancing girl press, 2018) and Next to Everything that is Breakable (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poetry and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from: Poet Lore, Hobart, Levee Magazine, and more. She currently lives in Pennsylvania and writes with the Madwomen in the Attic at Carlow University. Find her online: http://www.karaknickerbocker.com.