i had never observed grief so filled up, filled out, so full.

like her body had another body in there -

here body is body, as such, and grief is a presence that

fills and feeds and sits slumped in a chair looking and

looking out like an old dog with fed resignation. it has

a head of hair and sad eyes that look and look again, death-old,

at figures moving and doing people things. i could have

taken this stranger onto my lap and held her. i think she would

have let me, but i could not touch her. there was one too many

inside of her and i feared her grief, that second being, there;

contained and borne, it was magnificent to behold and

unbearable to watch. it filled her and it filled her out, that

public pain that went unobserved even with the milling of

skin that touched hers in that chair, where funeral breaths mingled.

it filled her and it filled her out; it completed her and my eyes could not leave her alone.