grief

He was an Italian whom she had met a few days earlier at a bar. Now she was on the back of his motorcycle as they rode down Sunset Boulevard. She wore a black dress, black heels, and a black motorcycle jacket with a wine-red-colored lining.

This past February, I hired a cab for a pandemic-fatigued trip with a friend to the Himalayan hills in Himachal Pradesh, down the Old Manali road. It was a drowsy afternoon, the summer heat landing thick on the windows. My friend and I drifted in and out of sleep as our driver wound along circuitous roads. Listening to old Hindi songs, I started counting the Semal trees on the roadside, perched on the hills. Also called silk cotton trees, they blossom at the end of winter: leafless trees holding vibrant clutches of big red flowers.

reeking of moss & blossom & on the street
i call home, i cannot be sure if i
exist. my thighs press on one another

When your four-year-old begins talking incessantly about death, there are a few tactics for dealing with it. One is curiosity. Why do you want to die? Why do you hope you die today? Why do you love to die? Why do you want to kill yourself? The four-year-old doesn’t know what death is, not really, and so he cannot truly answer the question.