Jessica Goodfellow
Jessica Goodfellow’s books are Whiteout (University of Alaska Press, 2017), Mendeleev’s Mandala (2015) and The Insomniac’s Weather Report (2014). Her work has been included in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and has been made into a short film by Motionpoems. She was awarded the Chad Walsh Poetry Prize from the Beloit Poetry Journal, and has been a writer-in-residence at Denali National Park and Preserve. Recently, her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, The Awl, The Southern Review, and Best American Poetry 2018. Jessica lives with her family in Japan.
How I Know My Grief
Nothing green
grows faster
than bamboo.
This is how
I know
my grief’s
not green.
Pine trees,
season-
blind, are green.
This is how
I know
my grief
is green.
An ampersand
stands where
a sequence
is unfinished.
This is how
I know
my grief’s
an ampersand.
Belonging,
though, is marked
by and and &—
this is how
I know
my grief’s
no ampersand.
My grief is
wind, & also
the spaces be-
tween winds
which are some-
times called time—
but that’s in error.
Where are
the hours &
the days so
green & end-
less now?
This is how
I know
my grief is
counter-clock
-wise, widder-
shins: contrary to
the sun’s
traverse
across the sky.
A horizon
constrains
what can be seen.
This is how
I know
my grief
is a horizon—
but, even more,
the opposite
of the horizon,
where one can
never arrive.
Conversely,
my grief
can never be
escaped.
My grief is
on the other hand
& on this hand,
& on my lips
& in my eyes
& in my shadow,
which, forebod-
ingly’s, contrary
to the sun
& to all things
green & growing
which must some
day die & I
do not know why
which is how
I know my grief.