Of all the poems we wish did not exist

a new draft about what comes before the grieving really starts.

Yesterday, my stepson’s friend was put to rest, and at the end of the service, as is Jewish tradition, the mourners gather around to shovel dirt onto the fresh grave.

This is supposed to be entirely ceremonial, a brief gesture to give one last gift to the dead. But the teenagers didn’t know how to leave, and just kept shoveling and shoveling until the whole grave was covered. I guess this is a poem for them, or maybe it’s just a draft that I don’t know the direction of, just yet, because the grieving’s yet to really start.

Text below, and an image of the poem down at the bottom.