The Preservation

I have curated the parlor to match the exact temperature of your final June.

I’ve waxed the floor to a lethal shine and replaced the dying lilies with silk ones, because real things have the audacity to brown at the edges.

I spend my afternoons practicing my "contentment" in the mirror, straightening my spine until it clicks, refusing to admit that the roof is leaking salt water.

I look at the photograph on the mantle.

The one where you are holding a glass of cheap wine, like it’s a chalice of liquid sun.

I ignore the dust settling on the frame;

She smiled like nothing would change...

The neighbors brought over a casserole and a sympathy card, but I left them on the porch to be eaten by the crows.

They don't understand the discipline of a perfect memory.

They want me to "process," to "evolve," to "move through the stages," as if grief were a career path with a retirement plan.

I told them I was too busy polishing the silverware.

I’ve spent three days scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush, trying to bleach the very concept of "after" out of the tile.

I am a scientist of the Status Quo, a high priestess of the Eternal Thursday.

I looked at the ghost of you sitting in that old leather chair, frozen in the amber of a joke I can’t remember, and I insisted:

She smiled like nothing would change...

But the satire of the "unchanging" is starting to peel.

The foundation of the house is sinking into the mud and I am still standing here in my wedding silk, which is now the color of a bruised lung.

I’ve realized that the only thing more tragic than a tragedy is a person who refuses to attend one.

I am the punchline of a joke about a clock that stopped but still thinks it’s telling the right time.

I reached out to touch your face, expecting skin but finding only cold, unyielding air.

The house groaned, a ceiling beam snapped like a bone and as the first of the rain hit the floorboards,

I looked at your portrait and realized the betrayal:

... She smiled like nothing would change...