Dana Henry Martin
THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE CRUELEST MONTH
How long can you keep talking about your brittle
bones, your bleeding lilacs, your dead hands,
tricking my memory with your desire, burning
rain on my mind’s skillet. I’m talking about
the burial of the living, the burial of you, what
slides from a nonstick surface into the compost.
But not just yet. Stay. Keep me warm, be a warning,
let me pull you close. There, trash mother. Mother
of eggshells, bandages, saccharin blooms. But also
mother of sunlight. Don’t frighten me. I’m what roots
clutch in your still-wintered winds. Or am I the wind,
too? And are there no roots? A short poem is best
for expressing grief. It keeps the feeling true.
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