Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Breath
No one could enter the bathroom
where Elizabeth had shot herself, bits of bone
blood and brain everywhere.
We closed the door and tried not to think
She felt unloved, but those of us who loved her
gathered at her house beside the Llano River
to mourn in our separate ways.
It was spring in the hill country
and bluebonnets covered the fields
My sister’s husband locked himself in his room for days
kept alive by my mother handing glasses of water
through a cracked door.
My sister’s sons sat around a fire pit
with their friends, dazed teenage boys
crouching by the embers, refusing tears
We brothers stunned and helpless, trying to be helpful
around the house, kept breaking things
cursing and crying. After an unbearable silence
Bob said it’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?
A hell of a thing
I remember walking into the Baptist church
standing at the back of the sanctuary
seeing a hundred people,
wondering who they all were,
so many Latinos with their children,
strangers at my sister’s funeral.
Then I remembered my brothers had married
Latinas, generous people I barely knew,
who surely loved my sister
As children we were taught to hate Mexicans
and now we were Mexicans.
I started laughing, then wheezing uncontrollably,
panic rushing though me in waves.
Faces I didn’t know turned to look at me
not unkindly, but with concern
and my nephew Andrew Narvaez,
a sweet kid I liked, took me gently by the arm
through the red doors of the sanctuary
to stand in the shade at the edge of the parking lot
beneath the wide arms of a live oak tree
He stood silently beside me
until I could weep.
We waited for the others —
my brothers, my parents,
our large Mexican family
merging quietly and driving off
into the soft blue hills
When we pulled into the driveway,
a woman was placing a mop and bucket
in the trunk of her car. She came to us,
hugged my mother and said quietly
I’m so sorry, Janie Lu. We all loved her
In the house, the bathroom door was open,
the light on, the surfaces immaculately scrubbed.
The neighbor whose name I didn’t know
had come to the house unbidden
to scour tile and porcelain, to pick
bits of bone from the floor,
to wipe up smears of brain,
to clean blood-spray from the ceiling,
to wash every sign of self-murder away
People say the world is an ugly place and maybe it is
but sometimes people are so damned kind
I can barely breathe
Copyright 2023 Michael Simms. From Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023)
Michael Simms is the founding editor of Vox Populi. His poetry collections include American Ash, Nightjar, Strange Meadowlark and Jubal Rising (Ragged Sky, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025). His speculative fiction novels include Bicycles of the Gods and The Hummingbird War (Madville 2022, 2026); and The Talon Trilogy (Madville, 2023, 2024, 2025).
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This morning I just had to let this one settle while I meditated and started my day. A powerful, beautiful, haunting poem.
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Thank you, Barbara. You are here every day holding up a corner of Vox Populi.
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An amazing poem, Michael. It took my breath away.
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Thank you, Linda!
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This is one of my favorite poems of yours, Michael.
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Thank you so much, dear friend. You know the beauty of the Texas Hill Country, and how it hides grief so well.
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Beautiful and heartbreaking. After those startling first lines I had to keep reading. An untidy poem for an untidy subject. The form suits the content. It’s a very hard thing to write about, to think about. I’ve been trying for more than 10 years to understand my father’s self-murder. In the case of your sister, it sounds like she was very much loved, but couldn’t see that, feel that, at the time of her death.
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I’m so sorry about your father, Penelope. I don’t think we ever recover from this kind of death. We just learn to live with the grief.
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Breathtaking and heartbreaking. No words.
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Thank you, Donna.
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The many readers of your poem for today have touched most of the bases I would have, if I had gotten here earlier, but I do have to add at least a few words: I started holding my own breath after reading the first two lines of your poem, and probably did not exhale until I had read the concluding tercet. I may have spoken of this phenomenon here before, but for me, only certain poems call to mind the unforgettable words of William Carlos Williams (“A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words”). This poem of yours is a heart-breaking machine and will resonate with me for a long time. No idea how long ago this tragedy took place, but my heart goes out to you and your family.
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Thank you. It happened twenty years ago today, and the grief is a dull pain now.
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This one literally put me in tears, Mike. What a poem! I especially love the ending: we all need such messages in these times of venality, violence, and greed. Kudos!
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Thank you, Syd. As I’ve said to you before, you have many poems that hit me like a thunderbolt.
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Reading all these perceptive and caring comments, I have hardly anything to add. But, O.M.G., what a powerful, painful, terrible poem to write. “He stood silently beside me until I could weep.” broke my heart, and that ending, Michael, that ending – so healing. What a POEM.
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Thanks, Rose Mary. I would not have survived this ordeal without the kindness of others.
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A powerful and poingnant narative with a thought-provoking ending. Thank you, Michael, for sharing your poem. The world is beautiful when it is colorful.
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Thank you, John. I admire your poems a great deal as well.
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It seems insensitive to praise a poem not written to be praised but instead to heal. I can now almost imagine how difficult such an event would be, and also how difficult to calm horror and shock into words and lines. But you did so. Among the other mourners at the graveside, I take my hat off.
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Alfred, for a poet of your status to praise my work is a great honor. Thank you.
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Dear Michael, I too teared up reading this poem, and was so moved by your family becoming Mexicans you’d grown up being taught to hate, and the incredible gift your neighbor’s terrible work was. I can’t imagine how you got through the writing of it. Thank you for writing and sharing it. My mother starved herself to death in a nursing home… She told me “This has nothing to do with you.” It did of course.
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Oh, Mary. Life is so full of heartbreak and beauty. Some days, we can barely stand it, no?
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Yes, so very full! Love to you, and all here, and there.
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what a powerful poem. I am so sorry about your sister.
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Thank you, Ann.
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Just reading this Michael, I can barely breathe. I bow to your courage in writing this, with gratitude.
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Thank you, Jan.
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Michael: I belong to this fraternity of sorrow, although my sister went about things differently: opioids, even indigence provided ongoing assistance and we attended her quiet finale, bedside over almost 2 weeks as they tried, probably too late, to stem an internal red tide and ongoing anemia from an ulcer. Her last words were already spoken by then. I wish it might have been at least as “peaceful” for all of you considering that sudden violence that steals all breath, but it remains loss however it happens doesn’t it? I’m afraid to lavish praise I feel on your poem—it deserves much! But its too difficult to speak so of anything such that has happened knowing well the visitation of ghosts, still doubting my own thoughts of what I did and didn’t do that come so fresh to a morning such as this.
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My condolences on the passing of your sister, Sean. Yes, inviting the ghosts to return is a dangerous thing, but sometimes necessary. Michael Simms
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So powerful. So poignant.
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Thanks, Arlene. At first I thought I was writing notes toward a personal essay, but I decided to keep the notes and call them a poem.
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Wow, Michael, this is (to use a word not used so much about poetry these days) powerful. The straightforward, non-histrionic tone works perfectly. The ending actually brought tears to my eyes. ________________________________
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Thank you, Charles. The poem slid out in one draft with very few revisions needed.
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How difficult it must have been at certain points in this poem to continue writing it, Michael! How difficult our job as poets is to face the fear, face the ache and continue writing anyway… Reading the comments, it warms my heart to see how this poem brings us together in a place of deep human empathy, witnessing, sadness, and shared compassion (as in passion with) — a common togetherness. And isn’t that what we so need — to be part of a community of kindness & understanding? Thank you dear Michael for offering a place to us to come together like this.
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Thank you, Laure-Anne. I admire your work so much.
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Thank you, Michael. Laure-Anne and Catherine Anderson speak for me as well. What a poem! I echo their posts. Vox Populi is so important, especially at this time in history, but really from now on. KINDNESS, for sure! Thank you. Thank you!
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Thanks, HC.
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Yes, absolutely.
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Thanks, Mel. You’ve been an inspiring example for me. Michael Simms
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Like everyone else who has commented, Michael, I deeply appreciate and admire this poem. I feel it in my bones — and in my heart.
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Thanks, Christine. Your poems are beautifully crafted, so I appreciate your praise.
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Damn! That is a powerful poem, and an ending I was not ecpecting.
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Thanks, Jason. When is your memoir out? I’d love a copy if you can spare it.
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It’s out May 5. Not sure how many copies they will give me.
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It was great seeing you today at Rita Dove’s reading. Isn’t she brilliant?
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Nice work, Michael. Thanks for taking us “inside.”
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Thanks, Tony.
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Today is the anniversary of Elizabeth’s death, so I wanted to run this elegy for her.
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Sending love to you and your family.
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Thanks, Christine. Strangely, my family never talks about my sister or what led to her self-harm. We specialize in denial.
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Michael, my eyes misted over when I read this. What a loss for your family. A stunning poem, a beautiful tribute to those who care beyond themselves.
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Thank you so much, Catherine.
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Richard St. John writes: “Mike, your poem for your sister is so moving, so compelling. It was a gift (of course a bittersweet gift) to read it afresh. Thank you.
I tried to post this on Vox Populi, but got into some tech cycle that wanted me to create an account, something I’m resistant to doing.
Feed free to post it if you like — or — just know how much I appreciate your work. – Rick”
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Michael,
So powerful and so moving. Thank you,
christine
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Thank you, Christine.
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This poem is so deeply personal, and yet also universal. The ending is stellar. I found myself holding my breath as I read it several times. Thank you for sharing this with all of us.
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Thank you, Valerie!
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Hi, Michael,
I often think to but never respond to your wonderful daily feed, but this poem took my breath away. I had to write. Amazing.
Bless you, Barb Jennes
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Thank you so much, Barb. I appreciate your comment. I hope you’ll join the dialogue in VP more often.
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thank you for showing the place of love in such a devastating circumstance. You bring the authority of a well-wrought poem to what many would claim to be unspeakable. In a world where grief so often centers on why it happened, or how to go on with life, you’ve written deeper to celebrate the sharing of people in such a situation. Their reaching out. Their variety of responses, well recollected by you.
The glorious bluebonnets bringing a surround of beauty to what cannot be ignored. And yet, as a fellow griever, I also feel the stinger in the tail, as you must.
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Yes, the scorpion of grief. Thank you for this image, Jim.
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Beautiful work on this. I usually avoid reading longer poems so early in the morning. But “Breath” swept me up and carried me away in its humanity.
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Yes, I usually prefer shorter poems as well. This poem is almost a personal essay.
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yes, it is…and so clear and true
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This poem is both a gut punch and so beautiful, Michael. I remember the first time I read it I carried the images and the kindness iof the neighbor with me for hours. It hit me in the same way this morning.
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Thank you so much for your support for my efforts, Jan. You have a depth of compassion that must serve you well in your professional work.
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thank you for your beautiful, painful, exquisite poem. Such an example of why poetry matters to our living. The things we endure are so large. And poetry can help keep us from drowning. And, too, this poem pivots from personal grief to social interdependence. Smart. Timely. Necessary. I’m sorry. I’m not giving it justice. But I was both moved by and proud of this poem.
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Thank you, Laura. I love your work as well. I’m glad to see you are still part of our community. We haven’t heard from you in a while, my friend.
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One of the best poems I’ve read. “Best” because you made me feel this, the heartbreak of one life, and the whole world feels the loss.
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Oh, Stella Sue, thank you so much.
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I could hardly breathe reading this. What a heartbreaking thing to live through; what a powerful poem to come out of this tragedy.
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Yes, I know, Barbara, you feel as I do that the best we can do with our grief is to make art of it.
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sometimes people are so damned kind
I can barely breathe
Sometimes it’s terror, sometimes grief, and sometimes it is brave human kindness that makes us barely breathe. This is an incredible poem Michael, hits hard to read, as it must have to write it. Thank you.
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Thank you, Noelle. We live in a time of public grief, but our personal grief must have a place as well.
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Most definitely, Michael
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So damn courageous. And so important. Because you wrote this, your sister will never be gone. Never.
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Oh, Lola, thank you so much for saying this.
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I meant every single word.
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A heartbreakingly powerful poem.
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Thank you so much, Ellen. You were the first to publish this poem… Thank you for all you do.
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omg michael, can barely breathe reading this so terribly human poem! and so brave of you to write it. deep bow.
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Oh Margo, mage and dancer of words, thank you. For someone with your gifts to praise the poem, I am truly grateful.
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