Griefwork, Poem by Akua Lezli Hope

POET MAKES PAPER VESSELS

recycling the loss/waste

of my soul-pricking wage work heals

the grief somehow to mimic my first

maker in a making. mother's ways

and feel the reuse of refuse

shapes the play useful beyond catharsis.

words neither contain nor describe this

bottomless grief. she was my first love ,

my first pain. she was my friend.

there have been so many moments

when i wished to tell her look, look at this

i found something new to do. as she would

she showed me how to find

something new in her finding so many

moments when i wished to tell her

tell her what i saw

she so imbued me with her and no one else

shares this nexus of aesthetics

where even where they depart, we meet.

who else would join me to see the

African show at the Guggenheim as she did,

or note the pink people busy copying,

sketching and trying to listen to her words

her knowingness, the joy of her soft hand in mine.