On Selecting the Contents of Care Package Number Three
Nano Taggart
We can’t help and we can’t help but postpone grief
with something. Our hero had given up but hope
has again regained hold. Isn’t it strange that zero
isn’t nothing? And so we learn you can buy time
(once it's running out) with winter’s inversion
bearing down so low we could lose the sun
if we didn’t know where to look. It's strange to know
that zero had to be invented as I notice Natalie’s row
of unlit candles has collected a thin skin. What would
you mail a twenty-five-year-old who's dying? Hand-
written notes from all of us. Knick-knacks of short
purpose? We feel as though we’ve cut a larger hole
around a hole. It’s stranger still that zero was invented
independently and all over. It’s not the same as nothing.
We’re making a list. A short list.
Originally published in The Shore, this poem addresses the helplessness that hollows us out once we hear the clock's awful ticking on a loved one; in thiscase, Clark Gunnel (d. June 15, 2012). It went through more drafts than I can count over the course of more than a decade.
NANO TAGGART is a founding editor of Sugar House Review, and would like to meet your dog.