A man kneels,
an act of reverence,
and blows cigarette smoke on his feet.
He finds himself
at a monument
for some tragedy he's never heard of.
Countless families
drowned off the coast,
too late to save but a few.
An obelisk
and at its base,
etched into the stone
a story.
A story of fleeing from home,
much like he had done when he was younger,
though their journey much more vast than his.
The engraver lives alone
with his cat, Milo.
His hands steady,
calloused
and scarred.
His occupation passed down
through his mother's side.
A history of rememberance,
A history of trapping grief.
The woman on her morning run
does not stop to consider.
Maybe she did,
once,
when she saw it on the news,
and told her sister over east about it.
Maybe
when the monument was installed
she stood a moment longer,
unable to fathom why.
Standing outside her car
checking her watch for her heartrate
her morning run becomes a blur.