the first spring we planted perennials
       

it felt like an undeserved miracle, that four hours
of fingers kneading earth could lead to a lifetime's
flowers, that each year a different brood of blooms

would crown gingerly through the snow-drowned
soil, a new cacophony declaring arrival, cautiously—
in Cantonese we do not say dead

we say not here and imply for now as if loyalty is an antidote
for death. imagine our betrayal when the irises and bee
balm and Veronicas didn't sprout the following summer

like when your body didn't return from North York General
and Dad swore his hands would never bury anything again
that had no hope for resurrection. that spring, we scourged

our nails of pallbearers' dirt. we drank need
like water, tended our garden on faith.
we didn't ask for rain. careless.

what did we know of permanence?

some things are worth the pain of losing.
when May comes, Dad crouches on his plastic stool
in the front yard, tucks his long-sleeved flannel

into his jeans and turns fragile seeds into being and counts
the ones that didn't and lays tulips on your grave and still
the cemetery hurtles to life under a blanket of dandelions

still you sleep, not here, for now

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Copyright © 2021 Jody Chan All rights reserved
from sick
Black Lawrence Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission