April isn’t the cruelest month.

        That would be July,

              the month you died,

         when asphalt gleamed heat

               and construction cones lined

    the lanes on the break-neck

                           freeway—

                I slumped

in the back like a sack

             of trash as our sisters and I raced

      tear-blind to the scene,

                        bodies flung

               side-to-side

                           as we whipped in

             and out of traffic, tires

                         screeching,         

              only to stand stunned,

                  worthless,

          gagged with Dad’s cigarette smoke—

        oh—I can still hear him sobbing

in the scorching garage.

​

                 In April, crocus spear

                 through soil, open pale purple,

                 thin as tissue paper,

                 lacewings luxuriating

                 in the saffron

                 like cats rolling

                 on their backs in the sun.

            

                 In April, the lilacs’ tiny blossoms,

                 hard as oysters, begin to soften,

                 and when they open,

                 iridescent frills

                 the color of pearls,

                 their fragrance drifting

                 through the windows,

                 sheer curtains shimmering.

 

     Maybe if I’d called you to say

                I’m worried, I love you,

     You could have said

               Help me. Dad won’t.

 

In the cement basement

       I saw the message

   you scrawled on the wall:

​

               Why won’t it rain?

     I saw your self-portrait

               in black spray paint.

              You blacked-out your own

          awful eyes.

 

     The anniversary creeps

       closer, hobbled, like a baby

                    buggy with one wheel

                missing.

 

               July is cruelest because

                        I still must drive

                past the hospital where the doctor

                    pronounced you dead,

                           past the chapel,

                     its gold and crimson windows,

                               past the Wal-Mart and the Maverik

            where you bought your beer and cigarettes,

                        past the woman with the dead baby’s

                  footprints tattooed on her breast,

                       and down there near the tracks:

              sagebrush, vodka bottles,

                      and a single sego lily,

                      basin blushed ruby red.

​

                            Oh July—you emergency!

                July with your wildfire heart.

 

But I drive past the field silvered

with sprinkler mist

where the two painted horses bend

their graceful faces

to the grass, their black manes

shining in the falling sun,

shining like your black hair

in the obituary picture.

 

This time I’ll stop

the car, and we will walk

to horses who know

only this emerald field,

its musky soil,

know only the sky spreading

its deep indigo,

and we’ll pull up clumps

of silky grass.

See how they move

toward us, bodies glistening

as the day disintegrates.

​

​

​