Widow Whelm

keep your helm above water

A.

never mind over and underwhelming
to be widowwhelmed is to be engulfed in our new state of reality
one in which emotions whelm up, over, and along, flooding us,
flooring us with intensity, and at that point a helm, if there were one, wouldn’t appear to serve much good because probably when this happens to us we are alone somewhere away from scrutiny and the spigot has groaned open and everything comes rushing out, a swollen river filled with debris
nearly all of it ours
that swirls and eddies about, individual items moments snapshots talismans memorabilia that make us smile and warm
our hearts until they burst all over again
like overinflated balloons or fly off farting, a sort of macabre whirligig that is just absurd enough to pull a laugh from our aching diaphragms, a few seconds reprieve before we sink under a little more, blow bubbles of pointless protest until some quotidian detail or momentary need snaps us up and out from under and we stride on over the whelming stream of our lives or just right through it because our feet really can’t get any wetter and if they could we really don’t want to hear about it just this minute that stretches and shrinks
most unreliably from one to the next

B.

to be both empty
and full to overflowing
to have lost your mate
your main friend your confidant
that other half who was often better
but not always
pushes you around a fearsome bend
that really wants to rhyme
with mend but of course
that is exactly impossible
is exactly the paradox

graphix solution (backwards): m l e h w r e v o