Dear God
Kalene left me and all that's still here is her African violets and discolored nail polishes and her ceramic goats. Time in front of me before death is filled with loneliness. Kalene's face behind me pushes me forward. The space where she used to walk and sleep and the china goats and the rubbery African violets. That's all I know about death. Those are the only scraps I have. You sit in the void of death where we flash up your face against the dark space at the end of our life. Father, Father we say. We think when we die we are coming home. All the dead people we love push us forward. Father, we say. Kalene sang old songs from Kentucky to me. Father. The vacant spaces smelling like Kalene settle at the bottom of my feet. All the clay goats and songs I forget stack up inside me, Father...father...farther.

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I flash your face into the corners of all the time I have. All the living people I love stick me into my days. The songs I remember the sounds cars make and the smell of frying fish. I flash your face onto the outer reaches of this so it will push me back and keep me here. Your face and the people and the songs moving me towards and away from death. How can our love be simple?

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Francis Rose's grief
her sweater drawer