This poem in The Ellis Review breaks my heart and lifts my day all at the same time.
“There are many reasons, known and unknown, as to why I write; I don’t like to think these reasons change necessarily, but rather, amass over time—no, maybe, these reasons refine over time. These days, I am writing a lot of elegies, so if I had to answer in the present, I write because it brings me closer to the dead, and being close to what is no longer animate, in whatever state or form, makes the pain that comes with loss just a little more bearable. Even death welcomes conversation.” — Khaty Xiong
O at the Edges 
She’s making sense of pain and miseries; at the border of living, dying and death. Lamenting with tears that flow inside …
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Yes, and the borders shift.
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“Even death welcomes conversation.” So very true….
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The dead often speak via the body; only a silent heart can listen …
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She’s written beautifully elsewhere about grief.
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I’ll have to research her work when I get a chance. Grief, it seems, can serve as a muse….a poignant, cathartic inspiration, and oddly enough, a comfort.
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And it’s even more interesting and poignant when elements of one’s other-than-American culture are aptly woven in the narrative.
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