What You Actually Lost

I convince myself

death comes from the wind

I kill you

with my exhale

with the roughly chopped garlic

I dream of my mother

a baby gets measles

I put on the wrong album

you wreck your car

I see a darkness in my own eyes

a tumour starts to form

I focus on the bruised skin of an orange to protect myself

this isn’t unfamiliar

I’ve run cemetery paths casually

and been scolded by a woman

sitting at her dead husband’s grave

I’ve stared at the turning leaves—overlooked

the names. I noticed the wildflowers, not

the freshly turned earth they sprouted from

I woke today

with the image of blood spilling

from an umbilical cord onto my frantic palms

diving naked into a snowbank

screaming the news of death at strangers

My dreams seep

into the lightness of my grey matter and the darkness

of my daytime thoughts. I woke heavy

as my mother’s calm voice

a dark brown stain on the carpet

simpler than the immensity of the unexpected

simpler than grieving what you actually lost