I seize. A car engine driven
too long in the hot sun, steam
escaping from under the hood,
radiator a dark-throated beast
seethes and leaks. I stand
stricken. Words blown
from me by the sharp air
of your death. I crouch in
the bushes, wait for the worst
to pass, for muscles to
remember. Here, in the current
of life called Maine, here in
the vertex of all my choices,
I expect the world to stop,
the leaves still, the black calls
of the birds to fall like ashes
on the split curtain of June. This hard
packed bough, my mother’s death.
I climb the hill, feet meeting road,
tar a hot slap on my soles.
Published in:
The Comstock Review
Fall/Winter 2015