The Speed of the Body

In the paroxysms of grief
I fall to my knees
lean into the couch
face buried in a cushion,

wailing to a nameless god.

The body contracts
seizes, wraps like a trembling fist
around something
already gone

holds tight to its absence.

Like an afterbirth
a third stage of labor
expels the last vestiges
of miscarried dreams

stillborn possibilities.

The slow contractions of holding
and releasing, holding
and releasing, pulse
through the days arrhythmic

as a broken heart.

This is how we grieve
at the speed of the body
hollowing ourselves of a future
until we find a new way

of holding the past.