The Anti-Grief

Day after day of rain. A ticket straight to

the mild-mannered hell of rethinking whatever,

the drive to EconoFoods: not a lot of grief in that.

You need staples — bread, rice, eggs.

Here’s a list: almonds, yogurt, all the little

anti-griefs add up.

Did I tell you? my grandfather sings from the grave.

They have my old Philco here.

I know all about your world of godawful and too bad.

I keep driving. In rain. Some luck required. Stop light.

Flashy cars on both sides playing radios too loud.

Ear damage! I used to shout out the window,

my boy in the front seat trying hard to shrink, not to know

who is that crazy at the wheel.

Grandfather likes saying: what? Half-deaf even now.

Half a lot of things, anytime. Half, what gives?

giving way. If there is a we or a you or an I finally.

He’d cup an ear if he had an ear.

So it is, the first anti-grief, a feather he picked up.

My childhood, walking with

the oldest man I ever, 1874 his

start date. Alarm and Should Have, two roads

he would not cross, and Consequence

a street over, he ignored completely. Always

an eye out for the great

small peculiar.

A feather. Sometimes handed to me. Or he’d

oil a clock with it right off the curb.

Into a pocket.