On Losing Their Father by Sue Goyette - Room Magazine

A woman moves against the tide at the funeral home
while we’re being offered strawberries and tea. She approaches us
as if we are without rock, our shore, sandy. Her name is Susan.
She speaks as if we are planetary, giving off such a light
that she is bathed in its blessing. She looks at my children
as if they are children. I found your father, she tells them. I was the one
who found him. Suddenly, they do not know what to do with strawberries.
Suddenly strawberries are something to be cared for, tended.
Nurtured. Should they sit down with the strawberries, they wonder.
Should they make a small bed for these berries and turn off the lights.
They are such small children to be making these decisions.
They are such small
children that when she breathes the breath
she has been holding for them,
they feel him with such force,
they are blown close to sinking.