She used to believe that giving cats a bath

would summon rain,

or if it was raining hard with the sun still set,

a horse and a human hybrid must be getting married.

She said a bed can’t be in front of a mirror,

because that, of course, was very bad luck too.

When someone dropped a spoon,

she said it meant a man would come by,

or a woman if it was a fork.

She said we couldn’t wear bright colors

for a few months up to a year if someone had just died

because it was an insult to the dead.

All those things seemed ludicrous to me.

Sometimes we would both laugh because of how absurd they were.

In the back of my mind, I think she couldn’t believe

that she believed in those things too.

When she died,

I could hardly cry at the funeral.

I thought if I didn’t let myself admit

that she was gone, then she wouldn’t be.

How could it be happening when I could still hear

her voice echoing in the halls-

her favorite blanket still formed the shape of her.

I still have so many afternoons I want to spend

just listening to her talk about the world.

I remember what she used to say about how

when you see a butterfly on a random day,

it was a loved one from the afterlife coming to visit you.

Each year on my birthday,

I’d see a butterfly perched on my door.

Grief is funny that way,

because I would have never believed in something like that.

Now I’d trade every real thing

for even the slightest possibility that it’s her somehow.

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