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Three years on, three poems later
I.
There are mourners-
black clad and numerous
like penny sweets.
I must explain
why she’s dead,
that grandmother of mine,
my pack-a-day role model.
They hang their heads
and mould lips, like wax,
into requisite sadness.
This day does not age them-
it digs early creases
through my skin-
but I do not want to move on
or haul these feet through
the dunes of grief for a day,
but keep sand in my shoes
until the apocalypse.
I know, as well they do,
that a grave is damp and not
a better place for her.
II.
Age crept too fast
and bullied her into the ground,
picked a rock and wrote
what it had stolen.
My lilies are wasted
on a tombstone-
hard-faced like God.
He’s violent to bring
a sudden death
as if pulling weeds from Eden-
but a human’s roots
always run much deeper.
III.
Now her legs must be
bones beneath her jeans,
slight and skinny as
she always prayed for.
God answered her too late.
***
bio: The author is 16, lives with her crazy father in England, was mute until age 3, but read the dictionary for fun by age 5. Writing keeps her out of trouble (most of the time) and she pours all her energy into it. Tara has been previously published in America, and has some terrific poems upcoming in Peshekee River Poetry. Check it out!
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