Because at home, a hundred years ago
On Adriatic cliffs, it fed on seed pods,
Shaking nature’s handouts free.

The natural world incinerated
To the rocks we sit on, nothing more.

The birds don’t sing around the bungalow,
They cough, they sputter, congregate and yell.

Unfair—indecent—that your body would
Display, where everyone could see,
The name of someone whom you didn’t love.

Hear their voices as they scamper through
A backlit meadow, unaware of me.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
And stuffs his vacant garments with his form.

I was so young that I invented loss,
The image of the mother’s face receding
On the far edge of the broken bed,

Snow, rocks darker than any shadow in the world.
We glimpsed another life below us—cottages, goats—

But never imagined it would be so difficult.

Two vases of flowers squarely on the ledge
stare out as though they regret the countryside,
mean to ignore you squinting above the edge

I’ve followed the crumbs to your feast,
share the table with Father again,
his anger smoldering belly-deep