Posted on October 11, 2025 by Jenn Zatopek

GRIEF INSTRUCTIONS

Because I am an earnest woman
I bury you in the rich, dark
soil of my heart–

Wrap you up in tissue paper
like the little gray mouse
I buried in the garden in July.

These words I write are me dancing,
singing praises for the dead at soul’s edge,
for you and me to bloom bright

in our next incarnation,
on the other side of this darkness
into the quiet radiance of dawn.

Image / Manzanita Trail, outside Taos, New Mexico