Thursday, November 11, 2010

Speaking of Death, Angie


Speaking of Death
by Angie 

You came into my home and didn't want to speak of death.
But death was what we were doing.
We smoked it in and puffed it out until it hung in rings above our head.
We leaked it from our unused breasts until it pooled below us.
We ate stillbirth for brunch with runny quiche.
We sipped on eulogies, written in deep Merlot ink.
We shat bills for cremation services and grief counseling.
We collected tears, a brackish grey water system, for our memorial gardens

You said that death talk made you uncomfortable.
And besides, you said, you wouldn't want to talk of death, if your baby died.
I thought that I would call you again
when I could speak of something other than death.
I still think that some days.

:::

about the contributor.
Angie is the editor of still life 365. Her second daughter Lucia was stillborn after 38 weeks of pregnancy. She writes about her experience with grief and mothering at still life with circles.

11 comments:

  1. This is a profoundly powerful piece of writing Angie. It rings loud bells of truth for me. I love that you have expressed yourself so clearly and am so unhappy that we have got to have these experiences. Thank you for being brutally honest and for speaking of death so openly. With my love Janice xx

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  2. I read through this twice. And nodded through it each time, understanding what you are talking about. You wrote it so well, and with such clarity of yourself and yet so many of us too. Thank you.

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  3. I have these same "friends", who avoided talking about Dylan's death with me at all costs because it made THEM uncomfortable.

    Sad, on so many levels.

    Kat @ In Dylan's Memory

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  4. I absolutely love this poem. It is so well written, I love the lines and the way it goes together. And I love the topic, you captured it well.

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  5. Yep. I get this. Beautifully executed. xx

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  6. you are amazing with words. I hate it when people avoid talking about Nara, about death, until it is strangling me. I demand that people sit with this, this grief, if just for a moment...to share it with me. But most just skirt the subject or act like I'm inappropriate...I love this poem. I think I'll print it because it feels like a piece of me.

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  7. death was with us for a long time. sometimes I think it still hasn't left. I feel sometimes that death will live with us for the rest of our days.

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