Sweet Sorrow

A poem reeking of nostalgia. "Sweet Sorrow" is one of the poems from my first self-published poetry chapbook, "Out of the Woods"

Sweet Sorrow

Fransivan MacKenzie

My best friend's sweatshirt is sprinkled with lint

and the atoms of a strong German perfume.

It bears the scent of three afternoons spent in an ancient classroom

with sunlight pouring through the windows,

hinged with autumn and everything that breezes along its wind.

I bury my nose in the fabric and something about its wraith reminds me

of my first Jack-o-lantern with a lopsided grin.

It was the last Halloween when our house

wasn’t full of unsung woes that echoed in the refrigerator’s hum,

the wisps of the box fan,

and the clinks of ice cubes in rows of shot glasses.

It smells like gentle rains with a father who hasn’t crawled into a bottle yet,

a sister who hasn’t emptied the medicine cabinet,

a mother who hasn’t yet been buried alive with her child’s passing.

Back before the tragedy,

it was when everything was dying that we felt most alive.

I breathe in deep and savor the earth's passing and the interim

between death and rebirth clinging to it.

It holds on to me the way they never did.

I imagine that at this hour,

her body is a question mark beneath the covers. 

Her eyes that are heavy with laugh lines are sealed,

her angelic lashes twitching as she dreams.

I hold this piece of her close to my chest

and think of how lucky she is to have someplace to call home

but how luckier the home is to have her.

I wear the sweatshirt and brace my arms together

until my scent and hers are tangled.

I want to remember what it’s like to belong to somebody,

even when that person is gone.

Sometimes, when I look at her emerald eyes,

I see the shadows of a sister who has not loved me enough to stick around,

but I never say the words out loud.