THE UNFUNNY PAPERS
It’s another cartoon where the canon booms
a perfect hole in the character’s chest – healed
and forgotten by the next pane. Grief is not
like that. We are alone a long time, adrift
as we should be, taking inventory of what’s left
of who we are. We feel around the jagged cavity,
tie-off the severed arteries, sew-up the flesh –
try to make something of living, or not.
But we’re never the same character again.
It is so easy on the page, adding color and
filling-in with emphasis. Easy to draw upon
the paper, put words in a balloon and let go.