A Considerable Body of Bereavement Literature

He only needed to risk a shameful disaster.
He hid out where no one could find him and wrote all night,
Cranking the heater up to sauna levels at first
And then turning the noisy apparatus full off.
I'll write until I'm too cold to write anymore or
Until someone or something else stops me, he boasted
To no one. Then he started his roll call of the dead,
Unscrolling line after line of his grief for the world,
For everyone he knew was losing ground to the thing
That ate at them after losing a one thing too dear
To them, however tragic or trifling to others.
It tore him up. It kept him warm. He knew how useless
His decision was. He wrote to the last memory.