My grief wakes up and phones a small town in Turkey. My grief accepts bribes in fresh fruit. My grief beats its imaginary friend. My grief calls out for food from the concrete factory. My grief owns a Citroën but won’t tell anyone. My grief sends angry letters to dead politicians. My grief scratches the four-letter word tattooed on its knuckles.

            My grief is an ibis scrabbling through trash looking for comparison. My grief is under the credit card in the wallet of a flea beneath its wing. My grief is the bird’s call which remembers Egypt.

            My grief can’t hear me or the waterfall we’re standing next to. It can’t see the cascade soaking the worn volcanic rock. But it can climb down the uneven face, careful in its cheap shoes, drink the clean water that runs over the lowest stones in its cupped hand, plunge in up to the wrist, and flex its digits feeling for angel’s teeth in the sand at the bottom.

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