after you died

i.

they asked me if there was something
of yours that I wanted to keep
I wanted
to keep your eyelashes, your breath,
your blood
I said this, and they looked
sad, said they meant did I want your
clothes and possessions, your things

I didn't know what I wanted
cradling my head with my arms and
quietly saying no over and over
my mouth
dry with the taste of morning sickness
and old seawater

a month later, I wanted all your clothes
I was scrub-faced and tired
the yellow
of the walls hurt my eyes, buried in wet
towels, sleeping naked on the floor every
night

ii.

I fucked somebody else
after the funeral
"somebody else" sounds wrong now
as if you are still alive, kissing
my shoulder in the morning

I'd taken cocaine
and it made a sound in my ears like a hummingbird

like tinnitus

like someone banging on a door or just that tiny high pitched scream
that someone starts to make when they have grown tired of crying
so hard

iii.

your mother was fixing my hair in the kitchen
a bobby pin tucked into her mouth, talking
about the first time she got drunk
she took
the pin out of her mouth and said it made me feel
like I was really saying something, bit down on
the edge of her glass
she looked old like
she had died too, and I couldn't see anything
of you in the lining of her face

she poured
another gin and tonic, laughed a little as if
at herself, said but I wasn't

we began to drink
like drowning women
trying to wash away the dirt and grief and earth
that you had left there

iv.

it was a whisper at first
soft little whispers that hung against the walls like fog
until the whisper became a voice became a shout
became a howl that ran its fingernails down my face

and I huddled in the shower
wet in my clothes
holding it in like a bowl of blood