Grief :: deep sor­row caused by some­one’s death. Deep :: extended

far down from the sur­face. Death :: a per­ma­nent ces­sa­tion of life.

Sor­row :: dis­tress, sad­ness, or regret caused by loss. Deep ::

intense or extreme :: as in the depth of the twine tied to the ankle

when it sank to the bot­tom of the lake. Death:: an instance of dying

:: the moment breath stops cloud­ing the com­pact mir­ror held

before the mouth. Sor­row :: a dis­play of grief, as in a Bergdorf

win­dow fram­ing a black cof­fee table flanked by two black wooden

chairs with maudlin cush­ions, a water­less vase with a sin­gle white

rose – aban­doned – dead cen­ter, atop the table. Grief :: poignant

bereave­ment :: the dream in which your moth­er appears to you for

the first time since her death and tells you the answer to the cross

-word you could­n’t solve. Death :: the state of being dead ::

as in the per­fect time to inform the IRS you are a res­i­dent of

a new province, where each cit­i­zen’s bones have been crushed

into a fine pow­der. There is not enough space to talk about pain.

Grief :: play­ful crit­i­cism: she should have gripped the wheel

tighter, a lit­tle more chest voice in his final plunge from the bridge,

fall in a more ele­gant arc post-impact before you hit the cross­walk.

What’s the hard­er job? Dying or sur­viv­ing? There is not enough

space to talk about pain. Con­sid­er it the twine that unties itself and

nev­er finds anoth­er body to coil to. If you can make sor­row a verb,

you can make it move, move it away from you. What’s the harder

job? Dying or liv­ing to wit­ness absence? If you can make sorrow

a noun, you can put lip­stick on it, kiss it like a pig on Christmas.

Pain :: local­ized, gen­er­al­ly unpleas­ant. A sensation

in the bones, in the body, in the veins. See also,

suf­fer­ing. Hurt :: to cause phys­i­cal dam­age. Wound

:: to inflict pain. See also, harm. To bear the maiming

of a soul in the bones, to walk with a splintered

skele­ton beneath the skin. Wound :: an injury to the

body. A recep­tor absorb­ing harm. Ache :: persistent

pain. To bear the decom­po­si­tion of a body while

the mind is still liv­ing :: the dis­par­i­ty between a mind

that can walk and a body in repose. Hurt :: to suffer

pain, grief. Ache :: the con­stant start of what will

nev­er come to fruition :: paused at the moment of

incep­tion. I picked up a phone but nev­er pressed it

to my ear. Hurt :: to be lodged in the eye of a thought

at the moment it man­i­fests :: unable to move forward

or back­ward in con­scious­ness. I told you I would

only talk about pain at this precipice. I picked up

a phone but nev­er dialed. See also, suf­fer­ing. To

suf­fer long days :: dis­cern­ing no dif­fer­ence between

the pass­ing of kalpas and the pass­ing of milliseconds.

Since the start of 2024, I have been writ­ing into an invented

form called a Pan­tou­block. Pan­tou­blocks are pantoums

that have been merged with a prose block. I conceived

of writ­ing into them as tools for pro­cess­ing grief.

The pieces in this pack­et are from a series of Merriam

Web­ster Pan­tou­blocks inter­ro­gat­ing def­i­n­i­tions, weaving

word sets inside the form with broad­er themes. As each

piece unfolds, the def­i­n­i­tions of the words in each word

set trans­form. Def­i­n­i­tions recur as alter­nate mean­ings, blur

into images, or are co-opt­ed by the voice of the Speaker.

The Pan­tou­blocks in this series also talk back to each other,

con­tain­ing lines that delib­er­ate­ly echo oth­er pieces in the series.

While the cen­tral func­tion of defin­ing remains consistent

through­out the series, the Speak­er is promis­cu­ous with how

they attempt to con­struct broad­er meaning.

These pieces also received a recent aes­thet­ic makeover

with the addi­tion of the dou­ble colon. This is a symbol

I’ve had mixed feel­ings about. Read­ing Evie Shockley

late­ly, who in her­self is a mas­ter of poet­ic form

and punc­tu­a­tion, made me recon­sid­er my relationship

to the dou­ble colon. I admired her use of it in the poem,

“col­or bleed­ing”, from sud­den­ly we; though my use of it

in the Pan­tou­block is dif­fer­ent. With­in the Pantoublock,

the dou­ble colon is being used as a sym­bol of equivalence

and as a replace­ment for the word is. Where the symbol

falls between a word and its def­i­n­i­tion, it functions

as an equiv­o­ca­tor. When it falls between images,

it also func­tions as a silent is. In this way, it serves double

duty as a tool for com­par­i­son and con­struct­ing metaphor.