Death Without Song

With death—flowers, cards and people arrive.
Platters of food and wet eyes puncture
your aloneness. The people you know can barely
stand to look at you
but they do, and they say something about loss,
or try to, or tell you they know there’s nothing
they can say to comfort you, and that alone—
because it’s true—comforts
like bitter medicine. Admitting
the always stunning impotence of words
exposes the fact that you’re living
your worst nightmare and a noisy house
only delays the torture of silence
after years of hearing her voice fill these rooms.
The announcements, obituary, wake and funeral delay
the onset of what feels like your own death.

With divorce—nothing and no one arrives.
Not even her mail. The house is emptied of her
belongings. You sweep her long hair off the bathroom floor
for a last time. For the first time
you notice the clock ticking. Couples
everywhere when dining alone. People
don’t try to say anything about loss
when you tell them the news they’ve already heard.
Several seconds—perhaps two or three of the longest seconds
you’ve experienced in an even longer time—elapse
before they say something brief, usually two or three of the shortest
words you’ve experienced since the last time you told
the news that’s already known. News that travels
without announcement or newspaper clipping.
I’m so sorry, they mumble before suggesting
lunch sometime.