Taking Care by Callista Buchen

By T.

29 May 2026

502

Taking Care
Callista Buchen

I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it is okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes. We crack open bedroom doors, step over the creaks, and kiss the children. We are sore from this grief, like we’ve returned from a run, like we are training for a marathon. I’m with you all the way, says my grief, whispering, and then we splash our face with water and stretch, one big shadow and one small.

KEEP READING

SHARED WITH GRATITUDE

This poem appeared in THRUSH Poetry Journal, 2019.

ABOUT CALLISTA BUCHEN

Callista Buchen is the author of the full-length collection Look Look Look (Black Lawrence Press, 2019), and the chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, 2015) and Double-Mouthed (dancing girl press, 2016). Her work has appeared in Jet Fuel Review, Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, and many other journals. She is the winner of DIAGRAM‘s essay contest, an Indy Arts Council Creative Renewal Fellowship, and the C.D Wright conference’s Emerging Writer award,

… (more)