Lauren Swift

variables

today, another shooting in the early morning hours,
six dead at time of writing, 12 blocks away

I have lived here for only five months,
but it is my second time now, in this city;
I returned because it’s as close a thing to home
as I’ve known, though I’m still not at ease

I am uncertain I know how to be anywhere—
this morning’s dead, they are now nowhere
they only trended online for eight hours or so
before being buried in the timeline
by our other uncountable horrors

I used one tablespoon of oil for a stir-fry
I wrote four pages of woe in a journal
I miss an unknown number of people I’ve loved and still do
my only dog is still dead, and I am in an infinite bargaining phase,
where at any time I would give the entire number
in my bank account and maybe a limb or two as well
just to feel him snore again into my side, head buried into me,
soft and warm and 1,000 more nuances of sweetness
than even a poem can name

I’ve been thinking of grief as mounds,
each made of a million grains of sand,
and they stretch for as many miles
as it takes to reach the sea
it’s impossible to reach the beach without trodding on one
or 10 or 350, scattering all those multiples of grains everywhere
as though you have touched a cursed object

this quantification is only for distance
the length of a number, a figure, a body
between an eye and its tears—

tonight so many go to bed minus one,
only cold math to put on their nightstand
while they wait for a funeral
where another mound is gathered
and to swim means stamping on memorials
we haven’t even yet accounted for

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Lauren Swift's work has appeared in or is forthcoming with publications including Denver Quarterly, Cimarron Review, North American Review, Atlanta Review, The Pinch, The 2River View, The Rumpus, Birdcoat Quarterly, No Contact and Poets.org. She was a finalist for the 2022 Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize. You can find her online at www.laurenswift.com.