When Spring Melts the Ground
The dead start stretching,
wonder what’s next. All
winter in quilts of white,
colorless as their wrists
and bones are becoming.
They think they ought to
be hungry, ought to feel
around for photographs
of the ones who followed
them this dark bed and
then turned their backs.
The dead wonder if this
is a bad dream where
flashes of their old clothes
are lugged off in boxes,
their names in an address
book crossed out, darkened
over with ink like someone
putting a stone on the
coffin or weighting a body
to throw overboard. When
they feel light move into
the grass they remember
lilacs, white roots of
trillium like upside down
trees in a negative. It’s too
late to change things. Some
times they smell fresh
flowers left on their grave
and feel less lonely. It does
not hurt to know somebody
kneeling in wet grass
is as lonely.
by Lyn Lifshin
from Autumn Sky Poetry Number 17, April 2010
Photo by Christine Klocek-Lim
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