We Named You Mercy

Amanda Johnston

after Gwendolyn Brooks

I count the years after you,

know your would-be ages and remember

the sadness that consumed me with the

bitter sound of you, my almost-children.

Could not conceive in conceiving you

our muted heat and all that got

through heaven’s gate to become that

half-wing that was your soul. Was you.

I saw your face once and, yes, I did

kiss your cheeks and cry for your sweet not-

quite nose, not-quite lips. Would I get

another chance to see you if I held the knife? Cold, the

sterile taker’s tools, my hands, bloody and damp.

In the darkness, I felt your toes bloom small

petals against my ribs. Your closed eyes, pulps

of possibility. Did you see me? The one with

empty arms stretching to embrace a

a silhouette of you? A ghost with little

more than hope for history. Or

did I make that up to keep you with

me a little longer? Did you stay until the no

I set upon your body untangled itself from sprigs of hair

and released you from the softness that tethered you to the

love in our cold mercy? Quieted blues, your singers

whose band tucked away their baritone horns and

my chosen grief. How those little workers

of sadness gathered me up, my heart, that

splintered with your hard stop. I will never

know the joy to have handled

your urgent cries against my chest or thirst for the

almost milk that did not swell, but was light as air.

Poems