Rob S. Friedman
November 2023
Above and Below
I’m lost in a steady grief that collars me to an unrelenting remembering of her, one that wraps its grip on my nape as a jailer might.
The stinging din of the shovel’s tip meeting the hard, ancient earth acts like sonar siting the place where I’m scoring a hole’s perimeter, one deep enough to contain the sadness.
But now a Chasteberry tree roots there, with purple-green leaves and violet berries molding the morning sun into a jailer’s key, loosening the collar.
Rob S. Friedman 