The loss is not yours alone, she said & you will see it in their eyes when they do not think you are watching. How long does it take? I said & she put her hand on my chest & we did not speak.
She turned to me & whispered, don’t you just love it when you get so excited you forget to breathe? & the thought of her smiling eyes still makes me laugh.
How do you know? she said & the answers fell like feathers, or the first snowflakes of November, light & without words. I looked in her eyes & smiled. You just know, I said.
She held her grief behind her eyes like an ocean & when she leaned forward into the day it spilled onto the floor & she wiped at it quickly with her foot & pretended no one had seen.
He told me about Jesus & Arizona & the best way to make beer & I said you’re a funny kind of preacher & he said it’s a funny kind of world & I still remember his eyes clear as a desert morning.