Author: Alison Jennings

I lost my partner/soulmate/best friend and also had to assume the role of his caregiver/health advocate. Writing poetry about this situation has helped me cope. I hope that these poems can help others with their grief journey.

In honor of my husband, DJ, who has dementia, and though physically still here, is no longer the person I spent 50 years with.

A Refusal to Mourn with Big Words

Don’t mourn with big words.
It’s best to use short ones—
hurt, pain, sob,
ache, grief, loss—
Small words help
to hold your sorrow,
keep it in your grip;
don’t reach for heights
of rage,
or make futile flaps
of wings, with your
heart tied down
with weights of woe.
If you sink too deep
into a flood of tears—
you may drown.


Old Clothes

I put on my life
like an old suit
of clothes
that barely fits now:
sleeves too long
for my reach,
shrunken by
visceral losses.
The hems all sag,
unable to hang on;
I can’t loosen
the chokehold
of circumstance.
Pockets and linings
rip, spilling
acidic contents
of rooted,
undiluted sorrow.
It will take a while
to fashion myself
a different suit;
my stitching skills
stink; the tailor’s
is closed down
for mourning.
Meanwhile,
I must make do,
like a beggar,
with just the clothes
upon my back.


A Furious Waterfall (After Theodore Roethke)

A lively
understandable spirit
once entertained you,
a recent widow, now
falling from the spousal
fortress, at first graceful,
gliding atop a smooth river;
then you collapse
like a lung, gasping for air,
as a furious waterfall
pulls you over the precipice.
You must avoid
succumbing
within chaotic whirlpools,
somehow rise up
onto slippery rocks,
keep those leaden
plates spinning,
as gravity works
to sink them,
and the callous universe
conceals all pulley ropes—
while in the nearby garden,
deer eat tomatoes,
yet leave lettuces galore,
arugula, beans:
enough for making salad
in tomorrow’s light
cool air. Wait.
It will come again.



Tightrope of Loss

Above the ridge, the evening sky sports pink puffy clouds,
resembling a country fair’s cotton candy. The overall light
is dim, but steady, not like October’s usual pulsing gloom.
To survive a sudden, lashing squall of medical malaise
requires selfish self-care, while still caring about others—
a tricky tightrope to maneuver. Part of me wants to slip
into that soft cloud but must join with helpers and healers.
A saint’s only as merciful as the situation allows; Christ
asked why he’d been forsaken within a tightrope of loss.
My former collaborative existence teeters precariously
on a cloudbank, and could plummet any second, as my toes
grip the line between two peaks, Weeping Woman on Wire.



Chronology of Grief (Time’s Stickiness)

Deep in mourning
for my former life,
I’ve learned that time is sticky:
it grabs onto things,
then extricates itself,
ricocheting
backward to a place
I’ve been
but no longer recognize.
Grief’s chronology skids
and swerves,
yesterday and forever
measuring alike—
it seemed my other life
would last forever.
And now I’m forced
to change, but I’m also
in command—
sorrow needs a charioteer
to curb its anguished horses.