How do I tell her

First published in Rabbit, Issue 38: Archive, Dec 2023

Cleveland Boat Ramp, 2019

she’s wrong about this?           Mum drives me out

            to where she thinks                   he last stood.

Late at night,                                our shadows jump

                                                      from the pontoon.

My gut tells me                   this isn’t the right place.

I don’t want to tell her                       where to grieve

                                            or how to process a loss

she’s already come to terms with       a lifetime ago.

           Curled in my fist             is a poem I’ve kept

 from her for years, hidden                  in plain sight.

           She named me after him,         as if she knew

we’d gravitate here someday            —too far apart

                                     to read each other’s minds,

too far from a medium              to call this a séance.

                It’s become all-consuming            to crab

through a skeleton               of hoaxes and whispers

                       —to close an abyss               of gaps

between generations.                   One day I’ll piece

                              these poems together at her feet

like whale bones.          If I held this one to her ear,

she could hear it sing              and still say nothing.