My birthday the year he died was the strangest birthday —
the first of the birthday
without his call,
the quiet of the phone
between eight and nine a.m.,
the alone
quality of the morning
without the particular script
of the call,
the specific equipped-
ness of his greeting.
He always called at eight-fifteen — never eight, never nine,
eight-fifteen,
the particular intent
of his punctuality applied to the birthday,
the consistency across the decades of the holiday,
the eight-fifteen that I’d been woken by
since I was five years old,
the particular sigh
of relief when the phone rang on time.
[Chorus]
My birthday the year he died was the particular quiet
of the eight-fifteen that didn’t riot
into the room — the silence of the phone
at eight-fifteen when I’m alone
with the expectation of the particular voice
at the particular hour, the specific choice
of the habitual that grief has cancelled.
I waited until nine before I acknowledged it fully —
the particular fully
of the grief, the particular inventory
of the morning as the territory
of the grief’s first birthday-specific delivery,
the particular tributary
of the loss, the birthday as the grief’s new occasion.
My daughter sang happy birthday to me at breakfast
the way she does, the specific blest
and off-key rendering of the song that she delivers
with full commitment — and the rivers
of the grief and the love and the birthday morning
ran together in the kitchen, the particular forming
of the grief into something that can coexist with the joy.
[Chorus]
My birthday the year he died was the particular quiet
of the eight-fifteen that didn’t riot
into the room — the silence of the phone
at eight-fifteen when I’m alone
with the expectation of the particular voice
at the particular hour, the specific choice
of the habitual that grief has cancelled.
The second birthday was easier, which was its own thing —
the particular ring
of the phone at eight-fifteen remained silent
and I was prepared, the stubborn
accommodation of the new absence in the birthday morning,
the grief present but the warning
gone — which is a form of the mending, the expected loss.