We Named You Mercy
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.
Copyright © 2017 by Amanda Johnston. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 14, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.