ODE TO GRIEF

Sarah Jackson

Ignore the damp seeping through your clothes,
And I will kiss lightly your numb skin.
You call this the intimacy you loathe,
For Grief buries and blooms within,
Its tendrils root beneath your ribcage,
Until each breath, so sparse and weary,
Contorts and blackens your lungs.
It’s a scent so addictive it takes frontstage,
It’s mournful, cloying like the white lily,
Impassioned, you no longer feel my tongue.

A lone petal falling from my blossoming tree,
Came not from the hills of heaven,
Or the fair dryad that inhabits me.
Hypnos becomes your sorrowful obsession.
Drowned in salt water where Woe resides,
Embalmed in shadows she embraces thee,
Like a mother her allure is gentle,
So lay docile enveloped under the tides,
For poison pervades her sultry sea
And Melancholy worships her temple.

Oh, false bliss is such ecstasy!
And tempting is Woe’s easeful death,
But resist her lure and steadily,
The tide will recede, and the roots will unthread,
And the torrent of torment will drain,
Leaving star speckled dew drops of spring morn,
To shroud your shoulders bare,
And the full noon rays, once again,
Let me kiss lightly your skin so warm,
Until all you can sigh is the sweetest fresh air.