Uncharted Territory of Grief

Summers meant sticking my arm out the back of a rez car.

No other windows rolled down.

Consequences of a mechanic, some stranger’s

calloused hands left us with sticky summers, sweat

dripping from our foreheads.

I waved to make-believe

friends and hungry ghosts. My arms danced

against the wind, taking comfort in

the resistance of warm desert air.

The ghosts sang along as Journey’s

keys and bass blared through

a battery-powered boombox.

The car hugged the highway curves like a child

holding its mom’s hand, afraid to walk alone in the dark.

Our grandmothers told us stories of the desert,

how giant serpents laid on mountains

to create canyons. Imagine earth crunching

under the weight of unbearable sadness.

Imagine what it feels like to collapse

into an uncharted territory of grief.

As young girls we learned the tale

of a mother who cried so many tears

she created a lake in the middle of the desert.

Today she sits in stone beneath a star-stitched sky,

holding up the otherwise untethered blue.

Last month, I read an orca gave birth

to a female calf who died thirty minutes

after entering our world. The orca carried her dead

calf for 17 days. Tethered by grief, hers the price

paid for love and loving.

                               At 34, my sister gives birth

to her first child, a winter-born boy.

In recovery, my sister asks if she can walk yet.

Her nurse says, “Wait until your legs are yours again.”

I wonder who and what I’ve carried

and carry for days, months, for years. Grandmother,

take me back to your childhood, where you sang

“Blue Moon” in boarding school, where you won

the talent show.

                                         Take me back to 17,

when my back first curved into an S—

the serpent inside me coiled under grief,

my scoliosis stopping any sports

outside of prayers and inside dreams.

I wish we’d had more time.

Take me back to the day my fingers learned the blues

until chords calloused their tips,

the electric progression of “Ain’t Got No Home”

etched into my body’s memory.

Take me back to when we were all children

given songs to sing. The ones you proclaimed

were anthems, predictions for how we would love.

Take me back to when

we were all children saying

let’s pretend. We’d yet to swim

through grief. Our spirits hadn’t been crushed

by fists breaking through bedroom walls

and I could still hold your hand in the dark.

Let’s pretend our ghosts have been fed.

Let’s make-believe our hearts are

ours so we can walk again.

Reverse the journey, playback

the boombox, rewind the cassette tape

to our favorite part where we all sing along

         to the na na na nas,

until my lungs can remember what it’s like to breathe

in a world where you are still here

and I am still waving at ghosts

through the back window, singing:

now it’s your turn girl to cry.