I Suffer A Phobia Called Hope

Each time I hear that word

I recall the disappointments

that were committed in its name:

the children who don't return,

the ailments that are never cured,

the memory that's never senile,

all of them hope crushed

beneath its wings as I smash

this mosquito on my daughter's head.

*

The grieving have only the unknown.

It's their only staple and inheritance.

Pain has no logic. All things redeem

the grieving except your rational questions.

*

I wish that no one goes

and no one comes.

All going is a stroke of myth

and each return

a punctured lung.