The Small Remainder

— t r a b o c c o

The grief did not leave.
That was the first surprise.
I had expected some door to open,
some clean white room
beyond the hurt.
Instead
the chair remained.
The cup remained.
Her coat,
still folded over the back
as though shoulders
might return for it.
And my chest,
God,
still carried
that old animal pressure,
that stone
behind the ribs.
But something
around it
changed.
Rain touched the window.
One drop.
Then another.
For weeks
I had heard only absence.
Now I heard rain.
A small branch
dragged once
across the glass.
A refrigerator hummed.
Someone outside
laughed too loudly
and then apologized.
The world,
which had seemed obscene
for continuing,
continued.
And for the first time
I did not hate it
for surviving me.
I put my palm
against the table.
Cold wood.
A scratch beneath
my smallest finger.
Dust in the groove.
These ridiculous,
ordinary things.
Present.
Still here.
Still asking nothing.
All I ever had to give her
was my attention.
Now I was giving it
to a table.
The pain moved again.
Sharp.
Immediate.
I nearly folded around it.
But there was rain now.
And wood.
And breath.
And the faint smell
of oranges
from the bowl
I had forgotten
on the table.
Pain.
Rain.
Wood.
Breath.
Orange peel.
Pain again.
Only now
it had neighbors.
I found my other hand
had been a fist
for weeks.
Opening it
felt dangerous.
One finger.
Then another.
Nothing disappeared.
That mattered.
Nothing was forgiven.
Nothing repaired.
Her coat
was still empty.
But emptiness
was no longer
the only object
in the room.
Light had reached
the floorboards.
A crooked rectangle
beneath the window.
I watched dust
move through it,
slowly,
without grief,
without joy,
simply turning
because air
had touched it.
And something in me
turned too.
Not toward happiness.
Toward enough.
Toward a world that can hold
the thing that destroyed you
and still hold
rain,
wood,
oranges,
dust,
a stranger laughing
on the pavement,
your own hand
resting quietly
where you left it.
I inhaled.
The grief came with me.
I exhaled.
It did not take
the whole breath.
And there,
in that small remainder,
I felt the world
become larger
than what had happened.

By: Joe Trabocco
Signal Literature