And sometimes, you just feel it
because quickness, the twin of youth
can turn dark. It may come
like that. A sentence, then the period,
then space and suddenly, for a moment, your life
finds full form, in paragraphs on another paper:
you were good. Yes, you were good.
Goodness at this point is a genre,
the template of remembering.
Oh but see the body still. The body,
the body is a living book of the dead:
your cells, the syllables of generations.
So I tell you now what grief is:
a sentence forcing the spine to snap
a book shut, before it’s passed on, held
by handshakes, read out loud
by a kiss.
—-
Migoy Lizada is finishing his graduate studies at the National University of Singapore.