Everyone knows something about loss,
though they may deny it, or confuse it
with something else, may respond
in confounding ways to having lost
something close to their hearts, something
big, whose absence feels even bigger, like
a vast canyon of loss rather than a crack
or crevice—something that now and then
might escape their notice but is always there,
guarded by pained expressions I see
in their faces every day. Also in mine.
