This

by Peter Cashorali

Even years later, 
reading before sleep,
though life started up again
and was richer 
than before it broke,
and you long since 
brought flowers to the grave
for the last time
because the grave
no longer meant him,
still, the same car from nowhere
hits you on the same dark road
and you’re weeping because
you won’t see him again,
not even to tell him about this,
though at least you no longer
howl why at the moon,
having learned the question 
isn’t why but what,
and everything that followed,
this included,
is its answer.

· · ·

[Peter Cashorali is a neurodivergent queer psychotherapist, formerly working in HIV/AIDS and community mental health, currently in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles. Recent work appears or will in Brief Wilderness, Soul Forte Journal, Gotham Lit, Centaur Lit. A chapbook, Yard Work, is upcoming from River Glass Books. Older work is Gay Fairy Tales (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995) and Gay Fairy and Folk Tales (Faber and Faber, 1997).]