Grief is a little animal that sits wanting in my chest

I’ve been thinking about it since I left you
Weeks ago-
Eating caviar on the blacktop parking lot,
Shucking oysters with a knife we’d bought inside.
I was leaving you to see my grandparents
For the last birthday they’d be alive.

It was salty and fishy, of course it was,
It slid across my tongue like an oil spill.
We laughed as we swallowed it down
Seawater soaking my shirt and stinging my
hands –
Where the knife had just slipped a bit-
While I tried to keep it from soaking
Into the car seat fabric
And to ignore the changing light

What felt like moments away from the dying.
I was eating to feed someone else’s starving
Body,
Relishing in the taste of ocean and tired joy
In your eyes
Trading stories and gifts and smiles and feeling
Alive together-
The first time in months we’d been able to.

So you know, I’ve been thinking about it since I
Left you
Parking lot caviar and the way you say my name-
A piece of hard candy that you’re puzzling out
The flavor of.
The highlighter yellow underscore on all my
Other thoughts-
Biting the inside of my cheek to keep from
Saying

I love you
I miss you
I hope you’re doing well
I think about you every day
I think I’d like to drive to your house and
Pick you up and run away for a while.
I think the air between us could become a living thing.

By Marty Miller