Sara Burnett

Flooded with purple chicory and foxgloves
in tall rows of burrsticking grasses

where rotten brambles of berries, cracked
shells stolen from hawk's nests

and bones from another creature's child
sink, as one day mine. But for now ablaze

in life, in late August, still budding, daring
to turn shades of dark crimson as grass tips yellow.

In death, St. Ceclia's body defied decay
her soft tortured flesh, a pressed calla lily petal.

Splotched inkdrops mar the page beneath my hand,
blossoms of blue lupine. One day you'll write me.

Changed: not even walls
     blue-bare or doors lacking latches,
          not even the table buckling under

the weight of your toolbox unloaded
     so there's not room to eat amid your hammers
          and wrenches for things that need fixing.

Changed: not even your voice
     saying hello after a year has passed
          since I've been in this house, and changed:

not even your hands that skim my shoulders
     awkwardly. When you say, we need twenty cloves exactly,
          I mince nineteen. We don't speak of leaving or staying.

Changed: not even the butter soft
     on the counter or the knives you keep
          in the warped drawer beside the gas stove that clicks

three times as it lights. Outside dusk falls quickly and quiet waits.
     The scorched grass from August's heat smolders ochre to pink haze
          and the deck stain we painted last summer is peeling. That day,

the dog died and when we came home,
     we worked side by side in silence until
          the sun lowered and startled us with its nearness.