In The Face Of

for Ann Hood

Because we are not made of stone
and grief is not the end of us
(though we have begged that it be so)

your face is not the finished mask
a sculptor carves, as if to say
Here, forever, is the face

of a mother who has outlived a child.
And wouldn’t that be high relief:
to build a face from outside in,

to strap it on, a plate of sorrow
fixed in time. Bravery in the face of,
someone once wrote, meaning the granite

face of death that stares us down,
eye upon eye, daring us to break.
Yet brave beyond brave, your face

breaks open to allow the world back in.
I watch it swim behind your eyes,
violently brilliant, flashing its fin.

And now the roar--the pitch and roll
of memory’s waters, the shifting
pulse of daughter, mother. The quickening.