twenty one explosions rung out ten years ago, and i was entrusted with one of the spent shells. when i put it against my ear, i can’t hear the ocean, but i remember the tinnitus ringing in its wake.
it was a viking’s funeral with the order all wrong. a ship sailed out to make an urn of the sky and sea, dust of a corpse thrown to the wind off the prow was a cruel irony, since ash is what stole his breath.
when his lungs spurned the solace of final words, there was no casket to forget how alive he looked before he was stuck out of sight in a hospital, whose false hope told us he was getting better.
i was a shoulder for his daughter;
i’m the same age now as she was then. and at least we could pretend
the sickness of grief was just the sea.