Poetry
Closed! Still Grieving
By Anindya Arif
I am no longer waiting
For God.
Even though God
Has always been here
Everywhere and in every instance
Where I have suffered,
God would not be so kind
To intervene in suffering
He had a direct hand in effectuating.
​
And I remember so little
About how life was
Before I traded my
Bay window view
of rundown Dhaka skylines
For a less invasive view
And more communal pools.
​
It is so warm outside,
but I am shivering.
it is so bright out,
but all
I see is darkness.
I do not remember the specifics
I cannot pick apart
Months and days anymore
I have somehow lost
All the resonance I had with
My past selves.
What dismays me the most
I will not always be this person
Who can reliably account for
Everything that happened between
At the start of this poem
​
On a swampy August morning
Until the end of it
on a desiccated autumn.
​
Here I go again,
Doing what I always do
Writing poems that are
Too spun out and
Too sentimental.
​
This March is slow,
Blue and endless.
and this March,
I am more than happy to succumb
To the excess of the 21st century.
​
This March,
When the pot of geranium
on my bay windowsill dies
I want to hang up a sign around my neck
That reads, “Closed! Still Grieving”.
​
To commemorate the end of this March (read: grief)
I will ornate my ceiling with flash fires
And cigarette ends that just burn in perpetuity.
So I can finally make peace with
All the ghost goodbyes masked in
Lilac-scented perfumes.
​
If I am not dead and buried by Independence Day
I will be on my way to Calgary.
Everyone I have ever loved
Lives in a neighbourhood
in Calgary
Where they still grow portulacas
And azaleas.
​
Even if I am only
Living for that space,
My grief will compel me to
Drive five kilometres short
of the neighbourhood.
​
When more azaleas spun
Out of my open wound
I will be reminded of how
it is not 2018 anymore,
And it has not been for over a decade now.
​
I still do not know how to honour
My brother's memories properly
The dryer in the backroom, and I still
Constantly wrestle with who can hold onto
More of what he has left behind.
​
I still do not know what to store inside
The Persian box you got, Ammu
The books you never got to read
or the last of my regrets
or my insurmountable guilt.
​
I have changed cities, vows,
And the order of the
Radio stations, which I hate the most.
​
I still have not marshalled the courage
To see myself in a mirror.
So, I cannot tell you
The reader
How much are my cuticles or eyebrows
Have grown in the last seven years.
​
Failing to make it to Calgary
I will inescapably find myself at CMH
Even though my starboard betrothed,
Will not be there
Waiting for me in the arrival lounge.
​
Even still,
The shawl she left behind
With her initials scrawled
Wrapped around my
Scuffed neck
Will be preyed on by swallows.
​
Yet I am neither in Calgary
Nor am I in Cincinnati
With all my shame
Even though it is not 2022,
I will again be leaving
Dhaka bruised.
​
Next spring,
I will be free of grief
And out further into the sea
Than I have ever been
And will finally write a book on
“How to not be immobilised by guilt?”
And the sequel
“How to make effeminate things last longer?"
​
When I inevitably fall short, the spring after
To make it to Calgary once more
They will ask Matilda (who cannot be whatsoever)
What to write in my obituary
She will feint a response
"I was only for him to die beside."
