Jenn Monroe

The Logic of Circles
for Kevin


One phoebe twists mid-air to snatch
an unfortunate moth. Circle of life 
my daughter would say, not shaken
by the natural order of things,

Your death is not natural, ordered.

Unlike the couple across the street
married 60 years. After she passed last spring
the house buzzed, shifts of care for him until
this spring. The stillness catches me as I pull close
the drapes. It was so busy, until it was not.

You were so busy.

I tried to make sense of it, up 6,000 feet
under unexpected sun, unable to speak
for the effort of the climb, friends concerned
about my desire to stay close to the edge.

But there is no solace in the logic of circles.

I should have recognized your path as chord,
not circumference, a tangent to everyone now
crowded in this banquet room. All of us spun
by the same question, the same brutal grief.