I never click on those stories,
the ones about disasters,
the ones about kids
but this story is too big,
though I read it quickly,
thinking perhaps
that if I did it fast
I would slip right past
the sorrow
but of course the grief
pinned me right away
under the weight of the rubble
of all the days they won’t see.
It took away my air
as if I had swallowed something
too big,
which of course I had
the impossible irreversibility of it
and they didn’t say much
about the families
but I know
I will think about them.
On holidays,
on rainy days,
on this day
each year.
I will buckle a little,
but eventually
I will get distracted
but not them.
I read once
that people
in the ache of grief
don’t need alarm clocks for years.
They want nothing more
than to stay asleep,
dreaming of the day
before that day
but the sadness
comes suddenly
each morning
like being stabbed
and one mother
after another
puts her hand
on her heart
where the wound
has opened up again.