Grief Mends

Grief mends us
with rose-thorned hands
that are sure
and tender
and brutal
and giving.

She burrows into
the places we never go,
gathering hidden prizes of suffering
we buried in childhood.

She delivers trauma bundles
we roll from palm to palm
until the grey bandages fall away
and sweet fruit
rises to be eaten.

With a flick of her wrists
she unfurls a blanket
from beneath her skirts
made of the tangled place
between night and nothingness.
She casts it hard to the horizon,
stretching farther than people can see.

Settling together beneath its weight
darkness becomes our home.
It's hard to breath
but we can sob
while our insides turn out
engulfing us.

Grief sways,
humming along with the symphony of decay
made by the tiniest creatures
who make soil of us all.
We settle deeper into her folds
unraveling completely.

She stitches
against our souls
using strong new sinew
that is wizened
and of the dark.

We feared grief so much
but she has made wholeness of us again
with her rose-thorned hands
that are sure,
and loyal.

Grief mended us
while we lay weeping in her lap
believing our world had ended.