Stationed

It's the other ones, who soon enough return to being happy after the funeral, that are nearest to their own deaths—in their gaiety and everyday distraction, they're so open and unguarded . . . anything could enter them; could claim them. It's the ones who weep incessantly that are saved for now, the ones who have taken a little of it into their systems: this is how inoculation works. And sorrow is difficult, a job: it requires time to complete. And the tears?—the salt of the folk saying, that gets sprinkled over the tail feathers and keeps a bird from flying; keeps it stationed in this world.