Self-Portrait as a Sonnet of Possible Ways to Mourn You

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by Leslie Grollman

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           I.
Or,
  If like Electra, mourning becomes me, long hair
                 wet with loss
  And a chorus behind me drones,
         shapes sounds from my stilled throat

           II.

But we thought you Mnemosyne, the Memory Carrier,
supposed to outlive us all
 
The one entrusted to pull the plug if…
 
You were grayed but not that old

           III.

     In heaves of breath and small steps

           IV.

Drone  n. a deep sustained, monotonous sound, a hum;
  an instrument or part of one that sounds it;
                    also:
                      burden

           V.

     You are owed nothing, the gods mime

           VI.

     Your sophic eyes and my wilding

           VII.

Your tumors:
     the wheels of your bike spinning
        in place, accreting
               mud
           like a curse

           VIII.

If mourning as
 
  Merkabah, n. Chariot, also Throne of God
    claimed to be driven by a lion, ox, eagle and Man
 
And if the one mourned is the Man —
 
Is grief a way to course the breath of God?

           IX.

     Remember when we sat under a jacaranda,
     told the world what it needed to hear
     if it wanted to mend its frayed hem.
 
     That world must have been ok
     with our idioms— it didn’t push us away.
 
     We held hands
     like they were the only hands; we gleaned
     words like a beholding.

           X.

Or,
   as Qawwali singer, wailing
       in hypnotic one-note,
     in union with harmonium,
     tabla and chorus — an absorption

           XI.

Burden n.  distress, hardship; heavy load;
   The refrain or chorus of a song (archaic)

           XII.

        fuck you for dying

           XIII.

Or,
 as Vianne
     in Chocolat, conjuring delectables: truffled
       bits of darkest cocoa
 infused
     with the ink of you
 sprinkled
            with plump chopped-up berries

           XIV.

        I unclench my fist —
        your name in ink
        mixes with my sweat.

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Leslie Grollman’s work appears in pidgeonholes, Psaltery & Lyre, Cordite Poetry Review, bath magg, Streetcake, Sweet Lit, Ellipsis Zine, Moist Poetry Journal, Writing Utopia 2020 Anthology, Thimble, Nailed, elsewhere and is forthcoming in NiftyLit. Leslie was shortlisted for The Surreal and Strange: Prose Poetry Competition 2022. She was chosen to be a reader for an Octopus Books’ reading period. Leslie earned an MSc Creative Writing, Poetry, with Distinction, from the University of Edinburgh in 2020 at age 70.

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