The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Renee Emerson
Naomi at the Wake My sons’ widows are in the yard, entertaining, in a way. Shaking hand after hand, accepting a hug, drawing in close to someone as if drawn from the deep waters of overgrown crabgrass and clover. The church handyman offered to come mow before the wake but I told him no, let them see a little of our loss, or “share” in it, as they say. Here the girls hug and dab at the eyes; in privacy, the girls wail. I stay in the kitchen, eternal, a ticking clock, and arrange casseroles like bought plots of land; dip serving spoons into the mash of cheese, potato, egg; pass out paper plates. Nothing is expected of me here. My daughters-in-law are beautiful, exposed in the yard, two mirror figures like displaced shadows. One always planted her garden with summer vegetables, the other with show flowers. I wonder sometimes what that meant for my sons, in their marriages. I see little of myself in either woman. To them grief is a broken pattern—the half-V of migrating geese, the clover with four leaves, the fair-haired child in the family. Often, as a young mother, I had the nightmare of my sons dying, by kidnapping, car, drowning in the strong arm of the local river. I was vigilant. And I watch now. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |