jar of poems
ellipsis
you sent me a letter once,
neatly dressed,
and stamped with a scarlet tanager.
black ink
on white torn out diary pages,
but enveloped in red;
the bottled river styx
spilled out and spilled over
unwavering pomegranate blossoms.
you sent me a letter once,
full of life and vitality.
your touch,
alive in the creases of the paper,
your hands caressed my hands—
warm.
you sent me a letter once,
words i was unable to read,
stained with your tears,
and mine too.
you sent me a letter once,
and i could only make out:
"i ... you."
Goldenrod
1.
When I was five, Mother told me,
Goldenrod is for tea, not for looking at.
Add a few sprigs to boiling water and drizzle in honey.
This is goldenrod.
2.
Autumn mornings came around — the girl gliding across the playground close behind. She points at something growing in the thick bushes, among the dying weeds.
Look at that pretty flower!
Goldenrod is for tea... but it's pretty too.
3.
I am seven when I am finally old enough to walk to school by myself. I find goldenrod blooming in neighbors' lawns. I breathe it in. If you watch closely enough, you can see it swallowing the garden, each day closer than the last.
4.
In science class, Ms. Marino teaches me that trees are alive. Not just trees, but all plants. Flowers are a type of plant. Goldenrod is a type of flower. Goldenrod is alive.
I say nothing in class but I race home, with my entire self, to tell Mother what I learned.
She laughs.
If they are alive, why don't they speak?
Here, have a cup of this tea.
I put my ear to the porcelain and whispered.
It whispered nothing back.
5.
Yellow leaves started falling off yellowing trees.
I wondered,
Why don't they ever try to reach for their leaves?
Why don't they just extend their branches, like arms, the ends, like spindly fingers, and pick gold out of the air?
Why do they just kiss their children goodbye?
6.
My teacher asks the class:
What color is death?
The other kids say black— the Grim Reaper; or white— Heaven.
I say yellow—
Autumn.
7.
The grass yellows while dying. The tree yellows then dies. Everything yellows in autumn. Everything dies.
It is still — the breeze has stopped, the cars have stopped moving, the houses stopped breathing.
Yellow leaves have fallen, already gone. The trees are lifeless and silent. They do not try to live—to regain their color—or maybe they did, and twigs broke off their weak bodies anyway.
8.
I am twelve. I learn about the water cycle in class: how flowers need to be watered, nurtured, cared for, not plucked and shown off to the world.
I prance home now, more like peacock than deer, but still sunlit, a flower in bloom. I ask Mother about wilting roses in empty glass vases. She pushes me away mid-sentence.
I learn not to ask questions.
9.
Still, in autumn, the goldenrod blooms.
10.
It is October. I turn seventeen in three months. I no longer get praised, or exist to please, but too much that I cannot seem to satisfy myself either.
My thoughts begin to drift away like yellow leaves breaking free from the tree. I try to grasp them, to seize and hold on tight to them, but I am too weak to pick out of the air, crystals, or rocks, that soar through the sky too effortlessly.
I turn my attention downward instead: the grounded week-old seedling sprouting its green leaves to bud yellow. I hear a familiar, stern voice coming from inside the house, or across the street, or somewhere.
Goldenrod is for tea, not for looking at.
11.
It is still — trees die as goldenrod blooms beneath them, so slowly, it is still. Like the wind’s whispering, it goes unheard. Like the chatter of houses and the pounding heart inside my chest, it goes unheard.
I tell myself,
The unheard are alive too.
Sometimes, I wish I could tell others the same thing.
Listen to my music as I open my mouth and speak.
12.
Goldenrod blooms in autumn as everything dies out, standing out in the dried-out yellow; the dying grass and its paling blades — last words parting out of its haunting lips as it crumbles and falls apart and away.
13.
In autumn, the flower in the field of ghosts continues to bloom and yellow.
I point at it and say:
Look at that pretty flower!