Case Study

We were ravaged             by our loss,                       our child.

                In the shower,                    slightly past midnight,

after I’d covered the length & width of her back with suds,


                she started crying.                     Then,     I started crying.

The grief we could no longer cradle, a house sparrow’s song,

          poured from us       into a bundle of steam.


          Our slumped network of nerves & muscle convulsed

                                                             while we bawled.

We stood in limbo, beyond time,


a faint gray comma

             between us & the planet rotating beside

our flesh. The shower tiles drank us in,


                                  their unblinking, marble eyes absorbed

what becomes of two poisoned creatures

      when their future, each sage green branch of it, has died back.

Notes:

“Case Study” is from Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024). © 2024 by Christian J. Collier. Reprinted with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.

Source: Poetry (September 2024)