Lying on the Couch

She asks how I am, my friend. I

say it’s hard to breathe. Grief old.

Memories resurfacing. Or rather,

surfacing. For the first time, hitting

like a summer Sinai wind. I’m

flattened. And four. Afraid of

everything. And my mind…I

tell my friend about a writer

whose name I can’t remember

who likens her mind to a

dangerous neighborhood. So

she doesn’t go there alone. How

are you I ask my friend. Grief.

Too many deaths. We ask if

there’s a time limit? To grief.

Shouldn’t we be over this?

Whatever this is. Is it happiness?

Less heaviness? Why do we

push ourselves past pain?

Why does a smile look like

strength? What if crying like

a like a baby in your fifties

being held by your eighty-year-old

mama is strength? What if

time dissolves in a messy

spiral? What are you doing

today, she asks. Nothing but

taking a walk I say. That’s

not nothing she says, what if

nothing, is something? And you

I ask, reading a book she says.

Lying on the couch and reading

a book. And for the first time

today, I can breathe.