I grieve in three shades: gray, black, and in that pinkish hue you find on the underbelly of a dead fish.  I walk through cemeteries and the gravestones pour out their hearts to me, and I am glad to have umbrella when the pale-faced sky opens all the faucets in the house at once.  

I grieve inside of acoustic-guitar strings.  It’s quiet there, and the warm hum reminds me of the glowing ember gnawing its way out of me from right behind my lungs, puncturing them to let out every breath I took from the crisp winter air that nips my face, licks me right on the nose, bathes my face in icy feather down.

I go to the art store to look through empty frames, because your face is in every one, and the gray in me turns to black.  And I am the pebbles on the bottom of the river, slippery, holding up the water, and I am below the pebbles.  I am the dirt.  I am grimy and there is grit in my face, my mouth, my lungs, and I know what withered wisdom in the hands of old men is like; I know how trees feel when their roots are intimate with the earth but chained forever there.  I know how bittersweet and tiresome broken bottle glass can be, and I know how long it takes to gather all the pieces and put them back together again.

And I am the skeleton of the fish, picked clean.