Formal feeling

Formal feeling

‘The fact is, after grief
there is no formal feeling,’
she writes to her aunt in Tolenta
who keeps geraniums because Ginsberg
chatted to her about reincarnation
whilst picking up pots and squinting.

The things she gifts grief,
she figures, are character building,
she will not touch pink
she will not show skin
she will not let rain
sink into her clothing.

The cards and the letters give her some feeling
that there are things she should be demonstrating
but her heart is busy pulling
blood into her routine.
The formal feeling she thinks of as
geraniums sunbathing.