Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

the chemo done dried her up and hollowed her out the way the sun and the air do water oaks.

There’s no happiness here.

rubbery and silly next to his work boots,

our hearts separated by the thin cages of our ribs,

There’s no happiness in it, just dry air and hard red clay where grass won’t grow.

that gun, black as rot, as pregnant with dread.

“It’s like a snake that sheds its skin. The outside look different when the scales change, but the inside always the same.”

and for a stupid second I wonder why Leonie and Michael ain’t arguing about him hitting Kayla. And then I remember. They don’t care.

She wakes up like that all the time, trailing the blankets of her dreams behind her.

Sorrow is food swallowed too quickly, caught in the throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

Because something in him also wants to leave his teary hug with his mother, his fight with his father, my death-crowded household, behind.