Survived By Her Mother - Parenthetical Girls

After class, you would drag me

With protest to the empty

Cherry tree, to tend the ground there

Once a week, respectfully

You would speak to me of the carrot-headed sister

Just beneath my feet, as solemnly you would

Stroke the ground to tuck her into her

Silten sheets, some six feet deep

With the months that passed before you

Could afford to mark the ground beneath the cherry tree

I learned to wait in your sheepskin seats

And dig my teeth deep

Into my knees, to dam the creeks above these

Ruddy cheeks that betray me

Now you’ve signed your name across the space beside her

And tend the ground where you will lay

Apart from everything but your carrot-headed daughter

Beneath that cherry tree

Eternally