Sorrow

Not to be mistaken for grief,it dodges funerals—

“Immaculate Mary,”a snake of cars,

and sod torn from the soil.Sorrow stays home,

leafs through photosfound under the bed:

a Fourth of July,a First Communion,

the home you lived in beforedownsizing to the apartment.

Like grief, it toostarts out good humored

to void all associationswith indifference.

Though, like indifference,it stands at a distance

from Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon.(Grief would stand much closer.)

And, having never mournedthe passing of one blessed

to return to the Creator,it mourns only the passing

and, in the quietest roomof Chicago, refuses to leave.