the poem goes like this: god and i dream that we are sitting together on the rim of the galaxy. the stars look like flecks of honey from this far up, the ascending souls like fragments of indigo-stained glass. i ask him how it felt the first time he spoke the word grief out loud. he says it was like cutting off his own hands using only his teeth. then i ask him what it means to heal. he says the dead always leave a part of themselves embedded in your heart, orange rind, cherry pit, apricot seed. those moments where you stand in the sunlight and feel some large unnameable thing press up against your chest, that’s their memories petaling, that’s their voices whispering, fall in love with this warmth for me, today, tomorrow, the next day, the next day, the next–
