February 2012
2 posts
I Tell Her
I tell her: we must get at the ground,
deep beneath the dirt, where the roots are.
Only here can we make ourselves strong;
here, where our proofs and reasons lie, buried.
We must separate the wheat from the chaff,
we must harvest only good things.
Remember how we want our lives to feel:
like drunkenness; gentle and warm,
eyes cloudy with God and smoke,
with the beauty of cold...
The Funeral
My father drove the little wooden cross
into the ground, and I wondered,
at age eleven, if it was sacrilege:
burying the rabbit we had found
torn apart by a crow in the yard,
its small heart still now,
its fur and ears mangled with blood and dirt.
We even said a prayer, I think,
my mother bowing her head
as a car shot down the alley,
kicking up dust.
My father walked away,
...