By Bridget Bell

It’s been months since a neighbor rang the doorbell with a
quiche or lentils or a bag full of fat purple grapes doomed
to rot into mush on the counter 

the mail slot silent, the last card long ago shoved
through its brass mouth and you are thankful
in a way because the worst is over 

your beloved is dead and yes, you know, there are things that are worse
than death but still you keep thinking of another line but you can’t find
the right page 

somewhere in the rural dust of Dorothy Allison’s
Bastard Out of Carolina where a daughter’s husband has died and
the mother tells her, face held in her hands, 

this is your face now
this is the oldest your face will ever look, you look at
the photos of his face, you bone-pick them bare, 

you’d eat the pictures if it’d make him
a permanent part of you and the world
has moved on.

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Bridget Bell’s (she/her) poetry collection is All That We Ask of You Is to Always Be Happy (CavanKerry Press 2025). She teaches composition and literature at Durham Technical Community College, proofreads manuscripts for Four Way Books, and pours pints at Ponysaurus Brewery. bridgetbellpoetry.com