one big shadow and one small

I used to be very against prose poems, but in my more relaxed and slightly less pretentious old age (lol), I've read enough good ones that I've come around. Today is April 5, which isn't exactly my brother's yahrzeit, but is the anniversary of his memorial service, and the day—or one of the days, anyway—when I post a poem that has something to do with grief. So here is a really wonderful prose poem about grief.

I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don't say, shhh. I don't say, it is okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes. We crack open bedroom doors, step over the creaks, and kiss the children. We are sore from this grief, like we've returned from a run, like we are training for a marathon. I'm with you all the way, says my grief, whispering, and then we splash our face with water and stretch, one big shadow and one small.

—Callista Buchen, "Taking Care," from Look Look Look (Black Lawrence Press, 2019)