Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation.
—Abraham Verghese
In winter the house
of grief deepens.
Down
in the dark earth,
small mouths sipping.
Someone
reading, someone
seeking some
kind
of feeling. Some kind
of healing.
A child has eyed
a star
spangled banner,
the grey dove’s
feather,
another bleak
scandal. There,
in the window, someone
burns
a solitary candle.