The beautiful letter drawings in my book were created by my art partner, Connie Saems. In addition to our book collaboration on *Harvest of What Remains, *since 2023 we have been pairing poets with visual artists to have them respond to one another’s work. Seven pairs exhibited at Gallery Twist in Lexington, MA, in May 2024. Here’s the poem I wrote in response to Connie’s eggshells. Thirteen pairs of artists and poets will be exhibiting together with Connie and me at Gallery FiveSparks in June 2026. Visit conniesaems.com to see the full range of Connie’s work.

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Grief has written letter after letter

to her beloved, has torn them into strips,

has seamed the broken

words and phrases into and over

hundreds of broken eggshells

from months of morning breakfasts,

 

covering the brokenness

with the broken

to make a residue

of loss as unreadable

and unquenchable as Grief.

 

I peer into a shell, strain to read —

 

OFTLY ESTERDAY NORNUMB—

 

runes printed in tall thin

block letters, ghost words that ripple

through conjecture and regret,

the cracks between the whys and what ifs.       

 

Grief has tossed for months on shards

of wave-loss until the shells have become bowls

from which Grief drinks

from the no waters, sips

the sea change of bone-dry fragments—

 

I DON’T SE LETITGO AVEN’T—

 

Grief has made a way-road,

            sacred carvings

along a shoreline

where Grief might find

a place to rest among stones and sand.

 

In the leaving and leavings, I search hard

through the snipped print,

grieving my own

beloved’s WID NING FIS SURES,

his slow DIS-

AP PEAR ING

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—from the exhibit “Not Know” by Connie Saems

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