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I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MOURN MEN WHO HAVE NOT TRIED TO KILL ME

By Gisselle Yepes

And in twenty-five days, we make a year without
Tio Freddy alive, without his flesh inhaling
cigarettes or bud once filled with wind
like that winter after Wela died, the only winter
we got with him here, we walked
every time we linked
downstairs to smoke, to watch the trees
mirror our empty. How naked grief makes us
that we can only name it a season bare
forgetting the harvest, forgetting his hand
reaching out for mine, his want to share a spliff trying
to bear his mother’s grief, forgetting his voice calling
yo! pero that’s a candle swollen after learning to roll thin
in jail, his want to savor or to share, his want
to live like his mother smoking and then back
into her arms. Her casket
under his. This armed
grief. How he died naked
in his bathroom like grief
makes and then leaves us
undone, and I do not know how to mourn him.
I am trying to find a place to leave
my bearings, while still seeing the smoke
rising after my breath.
 

 

 

Listen as Gisselle Yepes reads I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MOURN MEN WHO HAVE NOT TRIED TO KILL ME.
Added: Tuesday, May 23, 2023  /  Used with permission.
Gisselle Yepes
Photo by Justin A. Carney.

Gisselle Yepes is a Puerto Rican and Colombian poet and storyteller from the Bronx. Their autobiographical work is rooted in the relationships between grief, memory, and silence within familial dynamics and domestic spheres. Their work highlights grief’s illegibility to emphasize how grieving is an unearthing which makes space for love there too.

Yepes received their MFA in Creative Writing at Indiana University Bloomington. They hold a B.A. from Wesleyan University. They are a Letras Boricuas 2022 Fellowship Recipient and a Tin House Scholar. Their nonfiction piece “On Her Waters Summoning Us to Drown” won december magazine’s 2022 Curt Johnson Prose Award in Creative Nonfiction. Their poetry has appeared in Apogee Journal, Gulf Coast, Poets.org, The Missouri Review, and more. Their film was featured on GIPHY.

Image Description: Gisselle Yepes stands in front of a black backdrop. They wear dark brown curls parsed by light golden brown highlights, a white dress, three facial piercings and a heart-shaped locket.

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