Jeff squares the plasma center across the street and thinks.
I don’t know his name is Jeff yet. I don’t know that
his daughter has just died, or that she was once a model
pretty enough to be plucked off the street in Savannah
and put in a commercial.
Jeff doesn’t know
what his youngest was thinking,
her new baby inside the house, the car running
in closed garage. But he tells me about it.
I don’t know Jeff but he’s known his daughter her whole life.
Together, despite this, we tease the “why?” out, two strangers.
Together, we speak grief into existence and we know
the smallness of ourselves inside ourselves. I put
my hand on his shoulder, so touch breaks the spell.
This is all I know, to touch and break,
that touch can break.
Elysia Lucinda Smith is a full-time record slinging, book selling, bike riding poet. She also likes to play pool. Her first book, UNRULY was released from BlazeVox on Halloween of 2016.