by Lori D’Angelo
We don't trade one life for another or
a thousand. With every loss, the universe
cries out and also keeps on. Nothing, not
yet, stops it. So, yes, whether your mother
just found out she has cancer or your father
has just entered hospice, the clock still tick
tocks, minutes go by. Every year, around this
time, we watch Dickens' A Christmas Carol
and think, Ah yes, even a miser had a soul.
But yet when a man whose company did
some shitty shady things dies, don't join in
the chorus of he deserved it haters. It's not
much different to do that than it is to weigh
worth by a claim denied algorithm. If you say
all of them, mean all of them, even the maybe
he deserved it bastards. In earth, their bones,
our bones, all rot the same. The minute you
forget, you become what you thought you’d
never be: callous, jaded, alive but also dead.
Instead, mourn it all.
Lori D'Angelo is a grant recipient from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a fellow at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, and an alumna of the Community of Writers. Her work has appeared in various literary journals including BULL, Gargoyle, Drunken Boat, Moon City Review, and Rejection Letters. Her first book, a collection called The Monsters Are Here, was recently published by ELJ Editions.