Breathing

(A revision of grief poem so it is intelligible, or more so, perhaps. Still, reading it to myself, the rhythm still feels off, like it ends too quickly or something.)

It’s been raining. Overhead, reachless
Water drops glisten across thick power lines

The pavement, too, shimmers, wet and black.
The cloudy backdrop, heaven, falls steel gray

And the gray boy still lies on a pier at the river
The man in yellow pajamas stops turning in his hospital bed

The woman in the garden puts down her shovel
To gather up the pieces of her fallen white hair

Their lungs have stopped expanding
It’s no longer possible to pull in air

Choked with river sludge, vomit, red packs of Winstons.
What the hell is all that crap doing in there?

Drink this coffee, take a nap
Maybe you’d like to journal, write something

When they surface remember
Keep breathing, keep pulling in air.