Death is real, someone's there and then they're not

and it's not for singing about; it's not for making into art

When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb

When I walk into the room where you were

And look into the emptiness instead

All fails My knees fail My brain fails Words fail

Crusted with tears, catatonic and raw, I go downstairs and outside and you still get mail

A week after you died, a package with your name on it came

And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret,

and collapsed there on the front steps I wailed:

A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now

You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known deep down would not include you,

though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down,

being swallowed into a silence that's bottomless and real

It's dumb, and I don't want to learn anything from this
I love you