Sorrow

Sorrow had not yet visited me.

Shades of it sifted through my father’s stories,

the beleaguered look in my mother’s eyes as she watched

her wild, enchanted life grow dim.

Sorrow teased me with the loss of aged aunts,

both grandmothers, a menagerie of creatures—

lizards, frogs, parakeets, turtles, Easter chickadees,

my dog. Sorrow pricks which pierced, sorrow shrouds

which hovered but did not descend, did not destroy.

Not me. Not us.

My beloved and I were unencumbered,

possessing only one another.

We wandered away—joyful, buoyant,

waltzing, wandering into other cultures,

other worlds, confident sorrow would avoid us.

But there was no avoidance, only delay,

until inch by inch, moment by moment,

sorrow grew near

and moved right in.