Goldenrod by Maggie Smith

Author:Maggie Smith [Smith, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/One Signal Publishers
Published: 2021-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

At the End of My Marriage, I Think of Something My Daughter Said About Trees

When a tree is cut down, the sky’s like

finally, and rushes in.

Even when you trim a tree,

the sky fills in before the branch

hits the ground. It colors the space blue

because now it can.

Not everything is a poem

or has a poem inside it, but god help me

if I can’t find one when I empty

my son’s pockets before I do

the wash: one acorn, two rocks

(one smooth and gray, one rough

and glittering, flecked pink),

a chunk of mulch, a wilted

dandelion. The poem is there,

I think, pressing itself against

the grit or splinter or bitter

yellow, but I question its mother-

softness, suspicious of flowers

and laundry. I swear I’ve seen

poems riding my boy’s back

as he runs around our weed patch

of a lawn, letting crabgrass

saw his ankles because killing it

would mean killing the wild

violets, his sister’s namesakes.

I don’t dare look for poems

in spring even if all the purple

and green are on clearance then.

Two springs ago, my son

was so ill, he smelled bad-sweet,

and one morning he woke

shitting blood, saying my name,

my name, my name. No poem

kept his body from bruising

purple that would fade to green,

his skin a field of flowers—

no, not this poem and not

a poem at all. But he lived.

It’s spring again and he lives.

It’s spring again and his pockets

are full of petals and stones.

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