New On Old

New Year after arguing, with you


Grief is not just for the living, when the dead depart
decayed bereavement clings as well
to things
like our friendship, perhaps, which cracked
brittle and dry, untried, untempered
until the first vague pressure of opinion
sent it shattering in a thousand spiked resentments

and yet, grief follows well-worn paths
and platitudes. Denial, rage, loss, sadness
even when there is no tangible sign of death

the way your hand felt in mine, the first flush
of two women who find a self, reflected
and the slow decline as each must learn
there is no true mirror to the self

just silence, then
the weight of understanding and
the sadness of the missing
the bitter, stiff metallic resolution
'next time I will not trust'

and, like death, the love confined within
clawing for a way to break a passage through
the cloying, dark and breathless, silent loss
the soil stench of a rotted memory
drab and brown and slowly disappearing

And yet.
Today I shared a thought, a smile
and understood the healing, the vast strength
of renewal
and taking what I learned from you
I felt tendrils of new friendship
tentative, unfurl.