for Millie
The two-page poem of grief and revelation
crashed on “Save” today
unusual in its complexity
gone as surely as its subject
My child's death is always there
an abstraction, constant
an empty hovering
the cliché of the empty room
the unused bed --
other mothers know it
no other way to say it
Is she there
among the deer
lying on wet grass
in full view of their predators
or in the House Wren
protecting its nest with 8-hour songs
from a nearby pine
the baby Goldfinches
falling out of trees
like yellow leaves
the child next door
born in the hospital
where you lay dying
I met his father
bright with expectation
outside the icu
he was carrying clothes for his baby
and flowers
the child is counting worms
in the grass after the rain
the child's height measures
the time since your death
today it is not enough to say
she would have loved this book/song/new technology
today she would have danced
she would have written a poem
she would have made a video
she would have celebrated the fact
that a flock of politicians
lay down their games long enough
to enact the Marriage Equality Act
here
and she would have carved her rage
that it took so long
into a song of laughter
Martha Deed lives in North Tonawanda, NY. Recent publications include The November 2010 Project, The Lost Shoe (Naissance) and City Bird: Selected Poems (1991-2009) by Millie Niss, edited by Martha Deed. She has previously published at The New Verse News.
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