Bipolar grief

Last Saturday her brother’s car flew through the air the tree that broke his fall (and life) was not to blame and noone knows what was booze, bravado, sleeplessness it doesn’t matter now he lies in limbo a pergatory somewhere mid life and death his brain so swelled it’s oozing out the fault

surrounded by the laughs and squeals of everyday dismissal she tells me this straight after school while I’m directing kids and cars avoiding more fatalities relates it like a Morning Talk omitting Thanks For Listening Boys and Girls and Are There Any Questions?

She says she knows that he might die and mum’s been crying all the week but dad says nothing much at all I listen to her quiet words and ask her how she feels to help form words around her grief but she feels nothing now at all

the flaccid hand of sympathy can’t help her yet before her fall
and when she does I’m not quite sure
that I can reach right down
that dark abyss