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Maureen O'Leary

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Grief (for J’uan)

Maybe we turn into clouds of reefer
Particulates coating the lungs of the people thinking about us

First and secondhand smoke
Clinging to the frizzing gray locs of the women mourning us

Or maybe we are in the splashes of Hennessey
Swirling in the bottoms of Styrofoam cups
A bad burn in the throats of our brothers
Something to remember us by
On the way back up.

Maybe we are still here.

In the way the candles keep going out
In the way they call out to God.

If they only looked up they could see our eyes
Shining through the branches and glittering through the haze
Below the stars.

Maureen O'Leary lives in Sacramento, California. Her work appears in Coffin Bell Journal, Bandit Fiction, The Horror Zine, Ariadne Magazine, and Sycamore Review. She is a graduate of Ashland MFA.

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