The Prism

Don’t serenade my tombstone

with your sobbing violins,

or play a sombre requiem

for my God-forsaken soul.

Laugh out loud in lieu,

not in metaphor but for real—

I’m just beyond your touch

but not the still of a subtle

prayer—see me in the spectrum

as the glass breaks down the colours:

sweating, pitching haggard baseballs

in a lot in Tennessee,

quarrelling with the ump,

throwing spitters past the plate;

and on days I’m feeling calmer,

serving ice cream cones to children

beneath our Sol at Stanley Park;

and just beyond the tree line

in the north, when I’m a little more

daring, forging a trail like

Robert Frost—a little less

worn than most, bones I will inter in

frozen ground.

On a clear & sable night in

Chile, I’m mapping out the stars,

decrypting radio

waves, sending signals of my own:

that I was never

lost but never found,

that I’m more than just a body

and the sum of all its parts,

that my words can really breathe

out on their own,

for all our benefit—

yours, mine, and the cross-

eyed baby girl in

Lisbon.

Dial proper frequencies

for pick-up.

Hear me sing a lullaby,

softly, in Portuguese.

©2026 Andreas Gripp

Annie Otzen / Getty Images