James Champion

Where Grief Comes From

Plowing through the dark, the memory
walks away, but forgets
its briefcase. Inside it
is the endless sound of grandmother hitting
 
the bottom of the stairs (the impact
shakes the stars like glass chandeliers).
Inside the briefcase is the too-long space 
 
it takes for the ambulance 
to arrive—it’s trail of siren-shrieks lining 
the miles of dirt road.
What grandfather does while he waits 
 
for the ambulance
is inside the briefcase. He juggles blackbirds, 
drops them all. He watches dust motes 
drift through moonlight. He weeps.
 
There is a loon in the briefcase, pine trees,
spilled turpentine...
There is the lost painting 
that, weeks before her falling, 
 
she and her grandson had started together. 
The painting is a blue deer grazing 
in a black backdrop, yellow eyelets 
(fireflies, stars) hover above.
 
The briefcase is exactly the right size—
it frames the painting perfectly. Shut it,
and it conceals the painting perfectly:
a black lake over a pulse, slowing, slowing.

James Champion (he/him/his) is from Whitehall, Michigan. He graduated from Central Michigan University with an MA in Creative Writing in 2019. He likes skiing, walking, travelling. In other words, he is frightened of stillness. However, he is also enthralled by it. This balance might well be an accurate summation of his writing. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of Temenos Literary Journal.