after Franny Choi
In sitting shiva we shone, we swam, we sang silence
into silver, wove wave, warren, wilderness of loss,
loaming gardens of grief, in grieving gave grace, gave
grave, gave grove, forested faith, fawned, fasted, faded,
not five but ten, ten men, meaning men, meaning
matter, meaning count, meaning count out skirts.
what hurts, hurts, but silence sharpens. does god
not hear us girls? we women? woes woven, warped
in silence, steaming, reaming, keening. keening curved,
carved, cured into chanting, words wounded, worn,
warmed, warmed over, weathered in parchment, parched,
patterned, patinaed, pasted on, pasted over, wasted
on breath, breadth of loss, oceans of losing, loosening,
singing, no, chanting. these words given, scriven
for grief, gray, grim: yit gadol v’yit gadosh we peat,
repeat, day + day + day… a week, speak & speak,
a month, a year, a yearning, a churning, a chanting.
words a mist spreading, speeding. healing? or hurling
feeling? what feeling? what is the taste of void?
