<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; ">Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World</div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica"><i>The morning air is all awash with angels…<br>
- Richard Wilbur</i></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">The eyes open to a blue telephone<br>
In the bathroom of this five-star hotel.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">I wonder whom I should call? A plumber,<br>
Proctologist, urologist, or priest?</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">Who is most among us and most deserves<br>
The first call? I choose my father because</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">He’s astounded by bathroom telephones.<br>
I dial home. My mother answers. “Hey, Ma,</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">I say, “Can I talk to Poppa?” She gasps,<br>
And then I remember that my father</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">Has been dead for nearly a year. “Shit, Mom,”<br>
I say. “I forgot he’s dead. I’m sorry—</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">How did I forget?” “It’s okay,” she says.<br>
“I made him a cup of instant coffee</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">This morning and left it on the table—<br>
Like I have for, what, twenty-seven years—</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">And I didn’t realize my mistake<br>
Until this afternoon.” My mother laughs</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">At the angels who wait for us to pause<br>
During the most ordinary of days<br>
And sing our praise to forgetfulness</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">Before they slap our souls with their cold wings.<br>
Those angels burden and unbalance us.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">Those fucking angels ride us piggyback.<br>
Those angels, forever falling, snare us</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica">And haul us, prey and praying, into dust.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 18.0px 0.0px; font: 18.0px Helvetica"> - Sherman Alexie</p></body></html>