Guide to Mourning (2022)

No one told us we would have to 

mourn the day of our birth, 

because it really was only one day, 

and so it didn’t last that long.

No one told us there would come a day 

our mother would rue to us the pungent slime

of bouquet stems weeks after our birth, 

that day when she mourned her body and 

had begun to meld her plans for ours.

We would wait until we were the age she was when she had us 

when she told us life was nothing but loss– 

that loss was life’s only constant.

The loss of a day.

The mourning of a time.

The permanence of death.

But she did teach us 

that mourning is 

just tearful gratitude, 

a side effect of bliss.