Grief Games

Elephants visit their dead,
lift the bones onto their tusks,
balance them crosswise,
lever them against the ground,
and seesaw them in their looped trunks.

We shuffle letters and photographs
like decks of cards,
and thoughtfully stroke the worn corners
of precious objects
as if they were poker chips.

We play these games of grief
wager after wager,
then scoop up our winnings
and leave the tables,
our hands full of sorrow.

Roger Stoll lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and has published articles, book reviews and political poetry in Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Internationalist 360, Jewschool, Marxism-Leninism Today, MintPress News, MRonline, New Verse News, Orinoco Tribune, Popular Resistance, Resumen Latinoamericano, San Francisco Examiner, and ZNet. Read other articles by Roger.