Pia Mater

the body gives the brain

three opportunities

to survive an impact.

the outer layers

are built for force:

they negotiate with fracture,

with velocity,

with the ordinary violence

of existing.

but the innermost membrane

does something stranger.

it means to cling, rather than to brace.

the pia mater does not simply cover the brain.

it descends into every sulcus, rises over every gyrus,

learning each convolution so completely

that anatomists cannot separate it from the cortex

without tearing the vessels that pass between them.

i have always wondered

whether grief follows the same principle.

that there are forms of intimacy

the body no longer recognizes as separate,

and every attempt to leave them behind

requires injury.

anatomists describe the pia mater as "intimately adherent."

the phrase has always seemed less anatomical than confessional.

there is no natural plane between it and the cortex.

only vessels carrying blood,

only years of uninterrupted contact.

perhaps this is why grief resists precision.

some things are not removed.

they are separated by force.