No Good Mourning

It’s not a phantom sadness

because I know its name

and where it lives.

I  know the mood that conjures it,

the temporal passages

it favors.

No, this is a sadness

that inhabits me by now;

sometimes it stays small

in a pocket,

a piece of lint I needn’t notice.

Then other times it covers me

inside, then out

looms like a fog, like smog

that doesn’t lift

easily.

Not a phantom sadness

by any means

Rather, a steadfast messenger

always prone to remind me

this life is neither short nor long

but chosen,

chosen.