Fault Lines

A Poem (TW: Grief)

Fault Lines

TAP TAP TAP

the small hammer of grief
finds my hairline cracks,
turns them into fault lines.

TAP TAP TAP

The hospital elevator doors closed
on our last goodbye.
Tears took their cue
and poured down my face.

I willed them to stop
in time for dinner.

At the Thai place,
my mother said:

I hope you let yourself crack.

I thought:
my god, that sounds unpleasant.

Now I understand.

I needed to cry not just for that last day,
when I lay my head
gently across his chest
and he couldn’t move his arms
to hold me,

but for every moment
I wasn’t held
the way I needed to be held.

And every moment that I was.

For each time I was
one of five voices calling:

DAD! DAD! DAD!

as he came home
from teaching a room
full of faces like ours,
then lay on the couch
to rest.

They get the best of him,
I thought,
too young to name the feeling.

Beneath these plates,
the shudder and grind
of stories I’ve told myself.

My adult defenses
begin to fall away.

Buried beneath,
there is a little girl
reaching her arms out
for her dad.

May I hold her
without flinching
while she cries—

not closing the fault lines
but staying near
as we tremble.

My dad Brian, in delight at my sister’s wedding. May he rest in peace.

Thank you for reading! Your presence and encouragement is more meaningful than you know.

I’m now doing a shout-out in my weekly posts to a writer whose work has recently hit me like a depth charge. This week I’m highlighting

Kristi Joy Rimbach

, a poet whose recent writing on grief has been a balm. So grateful to be able to read her words in a time like this. Thank you for sharing your striking and vulnerable work Kristi!

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. Please drop a comment below.

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