PORTRAITS OF THE DAYS’ GRIEFS

                            by Eric Tran 

Today’s grief and I grope the man I've loved while the man he's loved finds us coffee.  Today's grief hurls the train not as late as forewarned, a vanishing point reversed. Some days’ griefs identify in third person fem and she snaps like a neon harness, sweats like virgin leather—you can't throw these griefs in the wash. Last week’s grief bleached me straw and dander then tugged patch and bald. One morning’s grief bled thin down my windshield, the next day’s slicked thick like jelly. I guess most grief by grip and tread, but isn’t all grief a failing brake? One day’s grief gifts a red jerk-off rash, the next wants to push its dick in dry, but honey I begged spit on that kind of grief. In grief succession: seatmate quietly sings opera through turbulent sky, two apples for dinner, pocketing a pack of gum or a lady’s purse or a jockstrap, I don’t really care. One night’s grief split my lip and sucked the wound to clot. No grief has held my body since, but still: a sting each time I kiss it goodnight.

Eric Tran is a medical student at the University of North Carolina and holds an MFA from UNCW. He is  the winner of the 2015 New Delta Review Matt Clark Prose Award and was a finalist in the 2015 Indiana Review 1/2K Prize and the Tinderbox Poetry Prize. His chapbook Affairs with Men in Suits is available from Backbone Press and his work appears in or is forthcoming in Diagram, Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. For more, visit VeryEricTran.com