First published 1999
Claribel Alegria sits with her grief and transforms it into verse. Each poem becomes a letter she cannot send, addressed to the husband who will never read her words again. She recalls their shared moments with startling clarity, pulling scenes from memory and setting them on the page. The weight of his absence presses against every line she writes. She questions what death means and whether separation is final. Her verses become a bridge she builds toward him, constructed from sorrow and sustained by the possibility that love survives even when the beloved does not. Through her letters in verse, Alegria discovers that mourning can yield its own fierce hope.
Genres: literary-fiction, grief, poetry, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, lyrical
Tropes: epistolary, grief
104 pages · Paperback · Curbstone Books
Content warnings: death