flare

by Adrie Rose

             after Ross Gay

 

 

it’s nearly 

your birthday, 

there are autumn

olives thickened 

like blood on ribs

on the branches 

along the bike path, 

the pregnant neighbor

gets a new bedframe 

and I’m remembering 

your back shimmering

with pain, liquifying 

with it, you wept 

every time you tried 

to maneuver yourself up

from the mattress on the floor,

you kept thinking you

would figure it out, why

didn’t you just buy

a goddamn

bedframe, why didn’t

your husband buy one, 

watching you boulder

yourself up daily,

now I

am trying to find you, 

are you in 

that one afternoon, 

late summer,

you laid 

the baby down in 

the yard and for once

she didn’t wail, she just 

looked around, the dark 

green grass fringing

the blanket, 

you thought, oh,

this is what they mean,

and laid down

beside her 

on the earth,

you thought it might

be easier from then on,

but it was only 

that half hour

of one 

afternoon, then

she screamed

so much for weeks

your mother in law

said you should take her

to the ER, maybe she

was right, 

you think now

maybe they were all 

right, you were too 

young, you did know 

nothing, are you

in that old 

timey restaurant,

eating baked beans, 

the day after, trying 

to think of anything

else, where your three year old

walked to the couple

at the next table 

and announced, 

My mother lost

our baby, our baby

washed away,


and they listened

to her, and nodded

and said, I’m sorry

to hear that sweetheart
, you

dumbly holding a hotdog

with mustard on it, 

she came back

to sit in your lap, pleased

with her new friends, where

do I find 

you, in all 

this sift and sinew,

the male poet is rejecting

this book again, 

saying this is just 

about mothering, a dirty

word, the filth 

of mothering, 

how can I find

you beneath the layers

of vomit and piss

and oatmeal and blood

and ketchup, 

who can even tell 

anymore, 

children love

to pretend 

to be wounded,

there was supposed 

to be joy

threaded through this but

you always cried

at your birthday, 

another year

wasted, there are ants 

in the honey 

again, autumn insisting

on gold 

and crimson, 

on splendor

in what is ruined 

or almost,

are you in the car again 

on that steep twisting hill

through the pines

to the school, snow

making the brakes

buck and shudder,

the nurse says

you have to take 

your child right now

to the crisis clinic,

they brought a knife

in their backpack

to cut themself,

are you in 

the waiting room

in those dented 

plastic chairs, next to

the depressing 

motivational posters, 

or are you home after,

singing the younger

to sleep, putting 

on Whose Line

Is It Anyway?


to cauterize

something in you 

by laughing, I keep

finding everyone 

around you

but I cannot

find you, how will I

claim you

if I cannot find

you and I, 

I just

want to get 

you out,

there was

supposed to be 

some benediction 

here but 

I am afraid

you are lost, a decade

of no one

even calling you

by your name.

I gathered

these red tart-sweet 

berries for you.

If you can, send up 

a flare.

I will come—

 

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