Mourning Diary

           a cento pantoum using lines from Ronald Barthes’s Mourning Diary (FSG, NY, 2010)

Mourning—a cruel country where I’m no longer afraid.
The formal beginning of the long bereavement.
This terrifies me.
I know my mourning will be chaotic.

The formal beginning of the long bereavement.
Eighteen months for a mother, a father.
I know my mourning will be chaotic.
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in.

Eighteen months for a mother, a father.
Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in.
Suffering, like a stone (around my neck, deep inside me).

Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.
This morning—the offer of lightness.
Suffering, like a stone (around my neck, deep inside me).
I ask for nothing but to live in my suffering.

This morning—the offer of lightness.
For the first time, I decide to wear a colored scarf.
I ask for nothing but to live in my suffering.
I limp along through my mourning.

For the first time, I decide to wear a colored scarf.
First Sunday morning without her.
I limp along through my mourning.
Henceforth and forever I am my own mother.

First Sunday morning without her.
Everyone is extremely nice, yet I feel entirely alone.
Henceforth and forever I am my own mother.
From now on my death would kill no one.

Everyone is extremely nice, yet I feel entirely alone.
This terrifies me.
From now on my death would kill no one.
Mourning: a cruel country where I’m no longer afraid.

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Angela Narciso Torres is the author of Blood Orange (Willow Books), To the Bone (Sundress Publications, 2020), and What Happens Is Neither (Four Way Books, 2021). Her recent work appears in POETRY, Cortland Review, and TriQuarterly. A graduate of Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program and Harvard Graduate School of Education, she has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Ragdale Foundation. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manila, she is Reviews editor for RHINO.