Grief
by Cindy Milwe
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
I wrote him off a year before he died.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
He spat his judgment, broke, and took on loans.
I’ll never know how much or where he lied.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
He walked away, beige-slacked, his heart all stones.
That moment was a first: my hands felt tied.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
Night-swimming, we were fighting, age-old moans.
A lowly Lear, he lived alone by pride.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
He couldn’t face the calls on all his phones.
Refused to tell old friends his cells were fried.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
I try to make amends across time zones.
It’s hard to think I could have changed the tide.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
My father’s dead—his wrath, a box of bones.
I wrote him off a year before he died.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
He spat his judgment, broke, and took on loans.
I’ll never know how much or where he lied.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
He walked away, beige-slacked, his heart all stones.
That moment was a first: my hands felt tied.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
Night-swimming, we were fighting, age-old moans.
A lowly Lear, he lived alone by pride.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
He couldn’t face the calls on all his phones.
Refused to tell old friends his cells were fried.
My father’s gone—his wrath, a box of bones.
I try to make amends across time zones.
It’s hard to think I could have changed the tide.
To break my freeze, I write in measured tones.
My father’s dead—his wrath, a box of bones.
Cindy Milwe is a writer and teacher who lives in Venice, CA. Her work has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry East, Poet Lore, Flyway, and other journals. She also has poems in three anthologies: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights, 2001); Changing Harm to Harmony: The Bullies and Bystanders Project (Marin Poetry Center Press, 2015), and Rumors, Secrets, & Lies (Anhinga Press, 2022). Her first full-length collection, Salvage, was published last year by Finishing Line Press.