Bereft

My sister died last year. I wrote this as an awkward tribute to her, or a statement of my helplessness. I miss you, sister.


BEREFT


Every movement
each thought
deliberate, trivial.

The pouring of the coffee.
Sitting.
Standing again.
Phone rings.
It's my mother.

Her words are forming and the sounds are saying that it is all God's will.

I watch myself nodding
as the sounds come from my throat
in some form of comfort.

She lost a child last night.

Somewhere in the world a mother lost a child last night.

The voice on the phone says it has to go.
I tell it I love it and shut the lid.

Images of someone's life pass through my memory.
Only the large images show through--
they are like boulders
jutting from the dead ground.

My body sits in a chair,
staring at a blank screen.
I understand, now
the meaning of the word bereft.