Manuscript

grief was
blue and cold
and tired
and quiet
like
Lake Michigan
the night we found
that crab
along the sandy lakefront—
a crab named Persephone,
he said
because she had six pomegranate dots
on her left claw
and because she was always caught
in the half-life
of a world passing sideways;
he thought it was poetic
and I thought it was poetry
and we argued the difference for
hoursanddaysandweeks
until I came back to
Lake Michigan [nights]
and he was gone
and so was Persephone
and all that was left was an echo
and shadows holding hands
as they followed sideways tracks
into the ink-dark water.