The Real - by Michael Blumenthal

I want to go back to that time after Michiko's death when I cried every day among the trees. To the real.
- Jack Gilbert, "Measuring the Tyger"

When your wife Michiko died,
you wept every day for two years.
You wept at the sad movies
and you wept during the comedies,
you wept while doing the dishes
and you wept even while making love,
as if love weren't weeping enough.
You wept in the shower, as the water
poured over you, and you wept
in the garden, watching
the crocuses bloom in April
only to die again in May. You wept
at the emptiness of plenitude, and wept
again at the plenitude latent
in every emptiness. You wept
at your best friends' houses, and wept
in the tedious parlors of strangers.
You wept until you were wet
with your own juices, your tears
raining down on you like petals.
If feeling were wealth, then you
were a millionare, drenched
in its dubious dollars.
In tears of grief and of love.
Of grief over love.