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Mercedes Lawry
Final Days
Dark scallop of sky
gathering moon. We inch
toward the last page.
Sounds from the piano
keep our hearts beating.
No one comes to the door.
The blue air grows stale.
The bowl is empty.
I see the back of your head,
bowed and still.
In Private
The violets, oh, the violets
gave us hope, their small loveliness
something we could protect.
But there was still the unhappy child next door
who cried and cried while his parents
grieved for the suffering they could not allay.
It was no wonder there was no garden,
how could you bear it.
My own roses mocked me
on days when I could not understand why
it was necessary to go on,
thinking of the child and how we might
hold hands and leap, clutching
a small bunch of violets,
such terrible thoughts, such ruin.
I should be ashamed, but this is how
we think, in solitude, when the dark
presses down and all of our reasoning
becomes a caged bird flinging itself at the bars.
I suppose I will once again
lay seeds in the narrow troughs
in the chilly light of spring,
pushing my hands into the dirt,
separating out the stones.
© Mercedes Lawry
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