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| NAYA VALDELLON |
| Letter |
| THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS POEM. THIS IS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR. |
| Was she thinking: grief
is a letter you mail to yourself once the turnstile’s been turned x or so number of times at the train station? The delay is necessary, is chosen in advance for a day like this, when she pushes the door open into a room made immaculate, and relatives made inquisitive, by an infant’s early death. The father lets out facts one at a time: heart failure. Two days of life. Less than one hour for the cremation. The periods like steel clicking into place. She hears the footsteps of a man who hands the ashes back in a white envelope, to the mother who accepts it with the calm of a commuter holding a ticket to a train ride that will carry her farthest from the right address. |