Because you too have lost the one you loved
You’ve grown a beard since last we met in the underpass,
John: an unruly grief-beard, ragged with rage.
It looks to me like a sign. Washed and neatly skirted as I am,
I long for it to be mine. It might just as well be mine,
this hirsute howl. Not only that: this hat punched down
in the middle to make a dip for passers-by to fill with coins,
this slow-fingered hand, this coat that gives you the outline
of a living man, these too could just as well be mine.
So when I’ve fumbled forth my money and you’ve roared
and I’ve agreed and you ask me: how do you keep going
after that? I think not of his loping, leaping joy, nor of his stillness
but of how he listened to your story while I lingered,
how he asked your name and you told him, and we called you by it.
Of how the woman was with you, but she didn’t speak.
For years we were kind with the ease of privilege. Now your beard,
your hat, the filthy coat in which you’re hunched like a fish
in an inch of water might just as well be mine. You’re kindred
to me now, John. Even your words sound like mine.
Ingrid Hanson has published work on Victorian literature and politics, peace protest, international debt and death. (She does also laugh, on occasion.) Her poetry has appeared in Antiphon. You can find her on Twitter here: @ihhanson.