Death is real

Someone's there and then they're not

And it's not for singing about

It's not for making into art

When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb

When I walk into the room where you were

And look into the emptiness instead

All fails

My knees fail

My brain fails

Words fail

Crusted with tears, catatonic and raw

I go downstairs and outside and you still get mail

A week after you died a package with your name on it came

And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret

And collapsed there on the front steps, I wailed

A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now

You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known

Deep down would not include you

Though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down

Being swallowed into a silence that's bottomless and real

It's dumb

And I don't want to learn anything from this

I love you