some days it rains

Today—or rather, yesterday, since it's after midnight—was the eighth anniversary of my brother's memorial service. His yahrzeit was a couple of weeks ago, but I always do a kind of celebration on April 5th, so here is a poem about death (and, tangentially, grief) that I really love. 

Death comes to me again, a girl

in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.

It’s not so terrible she tells me, 

not like you think, all darkness

and silence. There are windchimes

and the smell of lemons, some days

it rains, but more often the air is dry

and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase 

built from hair and bone and listen 

to the voices of the living. I like it, 

she says, shaking the dust from her hair, 

especially when they fight, and when they sing.

—Dorianne Laux, "Death Comes to Me Again, A Girl," from Smoke, 2000. 

This is for Pete, today, who I love and miss.