The Anniversary of the Death

The date comes back each year without an invitation,
the calendar page turns and there it is,
the way a scar resumes its occupation
of the skin despite the years, the quiz
of memory that the body keeps forever:
where were you, what were you doing, who called,
how many hours from the news to the endeavor
of getting there, who answered when you hauled
yourself to the hospital at midnight.

The anniversary of the death is its own season,
the year’s one day that needs a different reason
for everything, the coffee tastes different today,
the drive to work is different all the way,
the anniversary of the death is its own season.

Some people mark it with a visit to the grave,
some people play the music that he loved,
some people try to keep the day as brave
and ordinary as they can and shoved
it into the routine of the rest,
and find the grief arrives regardless by noon,
some trigger pulling at the request
of the body’s own memorial that’s immune
to the calendar pretending it’s a regular day.

I do my own quiet thing, which is to sit
with the actual memory and let it stay
as long as it wants, to not make it fit
into any shape that gets it out of the way.
The grief is not the problem, it’s the proof
of what mattered and what’s gone and what remains,
and on this day of all days I can’t be aloof
from the full weight of what the love contains.