Grief Bots

If there is such thing as light,

it is filled with bread crumbs

I need to sweep up with the edges

of my hand. If there is such thing

as darkness, it’s not so different,

all the sweetnesses whose pieces

have fallen like lemon cake around me;

it is your bed at midnight,

all the windows open and the air

filled with mint and rain and cedar

and the sweaty roots of soil.

You tell me it feels so seamless

between us––then

you play the saddest song you know

and almost put your hands

on my back. You laugh while

laying your whole body on top

of me and I want to tell you about

grief bots, how there are literally

thousands of people talking

to a line of code programmed to sound

like their lost loves, their dead someones.

I don’t know. I’m glad the computer isn’t

glowing on my face tonight––the wind

is on the wet grass, the rabbits look

blue and cold and fast. When you speak

to me, I feel like the man who invented

doors. I feel like the man who invented

opening doors. When I see you, I hear the

clean coldness of the snow way up high;

I feel like the man who invented inventing.

If to be an archaeologist is to spend time in ruins,

then I’ve been very good at my job. My heart

is wearing its mourning clothes. You know

how you held my wrist and a bruise appeared.

My body wanted to keep you. My skin is my

grief bot, it makes you speak, talking to me

so close and lonely––your green eyes,

your promises of the ocean, my surge

of feeling. I wish there was no such thing

as leaving.