My friends respond to my grief in the weeks after K’s death
by Jeannine Marie Pitas
J in Panama talks dirty to me. We’re both single over forty and could use a little consolation. B
in Canada gets mad when I’m slow to text him back. You neglect your friends. Maybe that’s why
they’ve been dying. I text back, F you, comforter of Job. T, her ex who is also my ex, calls me for
the first time in a year and a half. We fight and he hangs up on me, but when I call back we both
speak our truth: I miss her. Then, more reluctantly: I’ve missed you too. E says I need to get
used to people dying, that even though we’re only forty, three of his friends from university are
already gone. V, my atheist friend in Uruguay, attempting to help me move on, declares, She
doesn’t exist anymore. I text back: sorry, not helpful. I take a deep breath, try to bless their
intentions. No one knows what to say. Other friends hit sweeter notes – so sorry – but they only
write once, don’t check in again after a few days, don’t ask if I’m drinking water, if I’m sleeping,
if I’m singing. I make sure to ask her mother that, her partner, her kids. Meanwhile, J’s dirty talk
works for me. No, it’s not our only track. I send him pictures of Greece, the place where I’m
traveling, ancient sculptures of Artemis, ruins of an ancient agora. After the dirty talk he says
he’d hold me if he could, let me sleep in his arms. K would approve of our conversation. I
always envied the way she could walk into a bar and leave with four phone numbers, the tight
dresses stretched over her curved form. She gave me a sequined party dress with a slit up to the
waist. Life, life, so much life. We danced close at my workplace gala and everyone asked if we
were a couple. I’ll admit it – part of me wanted to be. A beam of light in all directions, she was. I
want her to burn the skin of my well-meaning friends who would try to make me forget her. I
want to stay stunned, Teresa of Avila-like, barefoot and outside myself, joyous in my grief.
When J talks dirty I feel her close – the hands I clasped, the soft body I embraced, the eyes
locked with mine in a dance. In Greece I dance with her, clap for the zeibekiko, wishing her to
move and twist inside of me. I want to imagine her eyes looking through me, her ghost slipping
in through my sinews. I wish that through my fingertips, her hands might still touch the world.
Jeannine Marie Pitas is a writer, teacher, Spanish-English literary translator, and editor. Her most recent poetry book, Or/And, was published by Paraclete Press in 2023. She lives in Pittsburgh, teaches at Saint Vincent College, and serves as an editor at Eulalia Books as well as Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry.
