Still: The Journal

Pauletta Hansel 

My Mother’s Words

There is so little left
to say. My own words 
never had the heft
your father’s did. Remember? 

We ran out of boxes for his books
after he died. I think that when he lost
his gift to read those words, he took
it as a sign. My skin still holds his soft

exhale against my neck that day,
his last, though sometimes there’s no memory
he’s gone— I worry if he sees my teapots occupy
his emptied shelves he might do inventory,

want to buy back all we carted off. My words
were shadows beside his.
What gave me joy was when the dirt
I tilled made way for green. The kettle’s hiss.

Crochet’s knotted thread.
Don’t fret so much when I forget
the day, or what you said,
even your name, Pauletta,

though I gave that to you,
didn’t I? I know you’re mine—
that word is constant as the moon
though sometimes it’s less cheese than rind.

~

April

For Joe 

It’s not about what’s new and green,
the underbelly of leaves,
each with its own signature of touch—
this one rough as winter’s skin,
this one the rubber of scar.

It’s not the dandelions, impossibly
yellow as a child’s drawing 
of a hundred suns, nor the bird
that darts now from the bushes,
the low hum of wings against 
his small missile of body.

Still, there is something of spring
that holds a small piece of your death,
breaking as easily in my hand as bark
from a fallen limb.

Maybe it’s about what does not come
back alive. The rose bush brittle brown,
with thorns that snap like small bones,

the storm-torn ground beneath the pear still red 
and open as a wound that refuses to heal.

It could be the white-winged moth
flitting alone from leaf to loosening bud.

The one persistent cardinal
calling for a mate.

Soon there’ll be a cacophony of color,
voices, everywhere life
creating more. But now

it’s April that shows us
what’s survived 
and what has not,

one against the other.

~

~

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