Dec 2004 poem published in the Inquirer last Sunday (yehey!)

Letter

Was she thinking: grief
is a letter you mail to yourself

once the turnstile’s been turned
x or so number of times

at the train station? The delay
is necessary, is chosen in advance

for a day like this, when she pushes
the door open into a room

made immaculate, and relatives
made inquisitive, by an infant’s

early death. The father lets out
facts one at a time: heart failure.

Two days of life. Less than one hour
for the cremation. The periods

like steel clicking into place.
She hears the footsteps of a man

who hands the ashes back
in a white envelope, to the mother

who accepts it with the calm
of a commuter holding a ticket

to a train ride that will carry her
farthest from the right address.