grieving -

The first portrait.

When children die

don't cry:

They have gone out like stars,

still hoping.

We only are left.

Envy them.

Envy the passionate

the humanists, the atheists

with their fairy tales.

Envy the innocent dead.

Don’t cry for their small ends.

Cry for yourself:

you have still so many moments

to be borne.

Even the distractions become tedious;

the carousing habitual as toothbrushing.

I go on buttoning and unbuttoning.

I have given up finding,

in their lips,

any door –

I have come to desire one thing only:

to sleep through long seconds.

There is no one to ask.

We are all trapped in boxes,

breathing.