Today's poem is by Nancy Naomi Carlson

Small Griefs
       

In the woods on the other side
of your chain-link fence where does
and fawns paw at the frozen dusk
and a lone fox slinks across a clearing
on the prowl for something small,
even so, these bed sheets
won't stay buried: the satin ones clotted
with blood from the eight-week life
your cervix would not hold; the teal ones
draping your chest where they cut the lump
from your breast—
                        your own cells, like termites,
boring through hidden ducts, bound to gorge
on your blood and gnaw at your bones;
the layette ones—so pale against bluing skin—
wound tight around your newborn son
when they ferried him from the birthing room
to machines that purred breath,
until his lungs rejected even this purified air.

So many sheets—
                        even the worn-out wedding ones—
layered like the silent snow that beds
the tracks of the deer, the fox, and your own
clumsy footprints, that cannot hide
the body's betrayals piling up faster each year,
though you sacrifice parts of yourself
to keep the peace, but the body
always wants more—imperfect coffer.

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Copyright © 2024 Nancy Naomi Carlson All rights reserved
from Piano in the Dark
Seagull Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission