Looking at Stones

Every Saturday we walk cemeteries,
search for familiar names, fresh
flowers, early deaths. 1870 was a bad year
for toddlers, and women called Anna often died
before their husbands. Probably a coincidence.

Mother looks, I imagine, to become comfortable
with her fate, the way she fingers greenhouse roses
for the garden and silk for her dress. We follow
for the same reason, as if practice could ease the shape
of her name in stone, the surprise of her breath on breezes,
her lilac perfume swelling from trees we never visited.

 

Sister

Twenty years to raise this fence.
Plank upon plank of pulled hair
and broken skin, nailed with words
soap could not wash away. Twenty years
more to tear it down, grow a thorny
hedge instead. Today you tell my daughter,
who already doubts my nature, that I am evil
because I let Dad beat you. You never knew
when to be quiet.