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I cli her in a blanket I crouch beside her, gazing down at her face, wishing I had words, or tears, or so to offer her But this is beyond all of that

I carefully lay the cloth across her face so the dirt won’t touch her Then I rest e of the hole and hoist myself up

I’ve never been to a funeral that wasn’t military, and that recitation doesn’t fit I don’t know the words to any prayers Eventually, thinking of Alec, feeling hirave, shutting my ears to the way it patters down onto the blanket

There are flowers growing everywhere in the woods I’d been planning, once ere into the building, to pick some of them and lay them all around our bed A surprise for her when she woke

I pick thelimpse of brown is visible Now it looks no different fro in the forest You could walk right by it, and never knoas there

Except that I do It’s my landmark, now I’ll always kno far I a on one side of the blankets, as though there should be another body sharing thes to the pillow, and I burythe path ore through the trees, leaving roo the ration bar in half autoo back to theout those that die each day

I can’t count the days

I can’t think

I can’t focus

I can’t go into the building I can’t leave

I sleep again I eat again

I fall asleep each night with the cold ain as I duck out of the afternoon sunlight and into the cave, ar with her back to ht This tie She’s wearing the saed and ruined as it hen she finally traded it for clothes from the wreck She alears that dress, in my memory