The day before, I’d gone out seeking warmth; in his bounty, grandfather Sun tugged at the tender shoots exploding at trees’ fingertips. In front of the produce merchant’s storefront, potted flowers paraded their colours and perfumes, their delicate petals open in silky invitation; I bought daisies with saffron hearts and oranges.

It is so hard, mon père, to plumb the depths of the pool of blood that is grief. Emerging from my dive, sticky with tears, skin cracked, the jerk of my breath translating countless earth tremors, eyes lowered, I gently stitched the cleansed wound back together until the next time. It had to be done, for life’s sake, so the path wouldn’t end, the path of poetry in all things, the whiteness of canvas waiting for paint, the smiles bestowed on those left behind.

I didn’t like the way the doctor’s sedatives scrubbed at my thoughts, mired my brain in gelatin, imprisoning words, turning sentences into snails, slithering trails along leaves. The pills wound me tight in plastic wrap, crushed the nimbleness of prose, my body had no tolerance for chemicals, my insides liquefied; in the end, I chose sleepless nights over the half-light of impotence with drool hanging from my lower lip.

Daffodil blossoms fired golden sparks across the tender green shoots of the lawn. I had not yet found the courage to revisit the various apartments my son had occupied over his twenty years in the city, a pilgrimage so as to be with him, keep him here with me a little longer. I knew each of his abodes. But I could no longer remember the address of the apartment in the west that he had shared with other students. I had visited him there once. He started washing plates to serve up the pizza I brought, the counter invisible under all the dirty dishes, his friends partying on, leaving it to him to pick up, clean up. He had decided not to oblige anymore, so the mess had grown; he was set to move to an apartment by Café Cherrier, a grim dwelling invaded by cockroaches as soon as the lights went out, where he slept with his bedside lamp on.