One Last Cigarette by Mary Stone Dockery

Author:Mary Stone Dockery
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780957142749
Publisher: Honest Publishing

III

June’s Child

Finally, I wanted to give up my grief,

the boiling cocoon wrapped in beeswax

and scent of burning lilac, the concrete

heaviness of my arms, the heat of cicadas

crossing my mother’s bones, these dreams

entombed in chlorine and warm sheets.

My mother’s quartz heart shined beneath

layers of dry dirt. I hadn’t had it in me

to imagine something beyond the weather.

The thermometer on the back porch

had broken years before, or melted

from touch of tongue, hands checking.

Cemeteries bled dried grass, russet

and bronzed leaves, as if I kept dropping

flames the shape of my mother’s eyes

or burned pearls. I didn’t know callused

seasons kept returning. The char and burn

was natural, an element of my skin,

smelled of my mother’s childhood home

catching fire, magnified petals, frying pan

spittle oil and grease, hot vapor.

Even in October, I’d find bath water

red as ulcers, or a child’s jump rope

curled on a steely front porch like the recently

shed skin of a snake, crackling with steam.

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