Reading Of Tess Gallagher’s Grief

Three years now, my wife is dead,

and I, become numb and thoughtless,

believing everything had been said,

and to dwell on it longer, a failing.

But reading of Tess Gallagher’s grief,

and seeing the shock her loss was,

I return to my own strife

and remember one untold suffering.

The feeling had to do with her hair,

that was long and always tied in a knot

on the top of her head, a signature:

It was her. It was entirely her.

But toward the end, she cut it off;

and that, for me, was a low point.

From that day forward she was cropped

like a prisoner for execution.