that's why we get along, we have the same empty IQ

          Attempts to say a thing:

Took a day off from breathing
to see if that would be like talking to you.

I've tasted your ashes twice, once today,
once tomorrow.

I study a dead tree that has a living shadow
made of God and crow shit, it resembles winter
all summer, what a stark easel the sky
never asked to be.

If you see a man chopping down wind,
it's me or someone who resembles me, with calluses
and an untied anchor falling through the ocean of his body.

          A critique of the attempts to say a thing:

Grief is punch-drunk
stupid, that's why we get along, we have the same
empty IQ, the same silhouette of a scarecrow
challenging lightning to a duel.

I had no business trying to see you leave, see death
arrive. I owe you an apology, an elegy, I owe you
the drift of memory, the praise of everything,
of saying it was the best decision of my life,
to hold you full, hold you empty, & live
as the only bond between the two

[Bob Hicok {1960- }, 'Elegy to Unnamed Sources' from Elegy Owed]