For When the Empty Nest Is You

There is no inner child to heal.

She did what all children do,

grew up

and flew away.

She leaves a silhouette behind.

I do what all the doctors say

and try what makes me think of her:

coloring books, video games,

PBS and PB&Js,

cut-up hot dogs,

tipping like a calf in the Happy Baby pose

and trying to remember her young mother's face.

The doctors are wrong, as usual:

it doesn't bring her back to me.

Neurologists can't even bring back the dead.

How could a shrink?

Why did Demeter dread her daughter's marriage?

When a child blossoms within you,

you shudder to let it go.

A girl like hers had no choice but to marry.

A girl who married disappeared.

My girl—

the girl I was—

married grief.

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