Seven Ways to Keep on Going

by Lorna Crozier

Seven Ways to Keep on Going

by Lorna Crozier

1. Take on another language, an alphabet of bone and sinew and
grit. Chew the gristle and learn by heart the songbook’s oldest
songs before you try to speak your dead husband’s name.

2. Draw his feet, long and elegant, the shape of them like two slim
fishes. Take extra time with the toes you took into your mouth.

3. Find the word that means “the sky after a swan has flown
through.” A mute swan with wide white wings. The noun has
been lost because too many fluent in this grasslands dialect,
when they look up, see only emptiness.

4. Remember everything.
(No, don’t do that!)

5. The hawk and owl feathers he found in the fields and kept in a jar
on his desk—glue them to the hollow near your shoulder blades
where you once had wings. You can wear his leather jacket then
and it won’t look big.

6. Observe the ways of insects. An ant uses the body of another ant
to build a bridge over the gap between the planks on the deck
so he can get to where he needs to go.

7. Sleep on both sides of the bed. Confuse the cat.

from After That (McClelland & Stewart, 2023).