photo: ralph murre
AUGUST
AGAIN
by
Marc J. Frazier
Husks
of insects scattered in the grass,
a
memory fights to be freed like this:
the
long road to your sister’s farm—it was August then too—
that
morning you consoled her,
weaving
her loss into your own thick skein of trepidation.
It
is difficult to swallow.
Dust
devils swirl on the dry lawns.
The
locusts drone.
This
is no place for words to take root.
What
you want to say lies inside—as infertile as her womb.
What is our biggest enemy you wonder.
Even
in dreams her face turns towards you—a flower to light.
How
many times do we choose the right word, the right gesture?
This
will do for now, you decide.
But
this is what you want for her:
a
swarm of children heated from play
who
find her always there, transformed into light itself.
They
grow around her.
~
first published in Permafrost
