I drag his death after me, its details
a kind of communion, taking him in
day after day, him becoming my body,
my blood, I becoming his, we are
co-mingled in a way that would not
be allowed if he were alive. I remember
the phone call from the embassy, my No,
your face, the airport, our questions,
the one red gladiola smashed in the center
of the courtyard at the morgue. I remember
us alone in the dark room, him out of the box,
wrapped in starched white swaddling that your
hand reached to uncover, then stopped. We
stood over our boy like Mary and Joseph
in the manger, as if he were a new baby
blessedly fresh to the world. But it was his
death that was new, that we crooned to,
his death a presence in the room like some
terrible gift, that would be opened again
and again, that never stopped giving, only
we didn’t know that then, we didn’t know
how we would bring it home, where we
would put it, how we would live with this
present, how we continue to.
— Sharon Charde
Sharon Charde is a psychotherapist, writing teacher, and poet. She is published widely in journals and anthologies and has won many awards for her poetry, including fellowships to MacDowell, VCCA and VSC, and seven Pushcart nominations. She has won first prize for three chapbooks, Bad Girl at the Altar Rail, Four Trees Down from Ponte Sisto, and Incendiary; honorable mention for After Blue; and had a full-length collection, Branch In His Hand, made into a radio drama by the BBC and broadcast in 2012. She works with delinquent girls and has published a collection of their poetry, I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent.