Lightness After

They say grief is a raven.

They say grief is a raven
its claws catching the hem of a cloak
darkness tugging at whatever light remains.

But when you died,
grief didn’t descend with the weather.
It lifted.
A thin brightness rose in me
unexpected as the way fog dissolves
to make way for morning.

I didn’t understand it then.
Only now, standing in the doorway
of that small, stale room,
where the bedsheets held your stillborn shape,
do I feel what opened.

It embarrasses me to say it— relief.

I skipped stones across the shore that week,
each one arcing,
a little prayer for distance.
Before I let them go
I pressed their cold abrasive mineral
against my bearded cheek—
a brief reminder of weight.
They touched water lightly.

And afterward,
the house grew quiet again,
light settling on the kitchen table
as if it had waited years
to be let in.

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