The Clinic Bomber's Mother
       

The trick, she guesses, is: be seen. Offer
coffee to police, walk among the living
without thinking of the dead. Never

apologize for being his mother. Keep
his photos on the mantel, his boyhood
room the same. Bring daisies to his plot,

ignore the other graves. Who really knows
who knows. She donates blood, is comforted
that strangers wear his clothes, irons

linens for St. Paul's, whose confessionals
have never felt so cramped. Bless me, Father,
she admits, the bathroom hook still holds

his towel. There's little time to think or rest.
More and more, the wafer tastes like flesh.

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Copyright © 2018 Shara Lessley All rights reserved
from The Explosive Expert's Wife
University of Wisconsin Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission