After seeing my community’s grief in the summer of 2020 as a result of structural and systemic violence, I noticed that storytelling for the bereaved often involves trying to rationalize the injustice and pain of loss. “grief logic #6” is also about loss, the passing of Tío, my second father. He fell gravely ill from a non-COVID sickness during the initial months of the pandemic. Hospital safety protocols meant that physical contact, a basic human need in the face of death, was not only forbidden but dangerous. I wasn’t able to bestow this tenderness upon my uncle until after he was already gone.•
for Mike (2020)
Tío
there is no holding
here if you are trying
to stay
so this
our last closeness at the door of history
does not matter your breath
already thinned from the air
I kissed your brow after you left it
though I could not
endanger anyone else with my touch
could not hold Tía T’s hand
as your chest slowed to stop
and I birthed your death for all others
retching into the phone
we don’t know what’s inside of us
but somehow are trying to stay here
together
I see you everywhere
I called your name in emergency
how is it
the first time I kissed your forehead
was the last?
This poem appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Alta Journal.
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