Eileen Cleary
Leaves & Blooms
Soon, April. And those of us who’d frozen our fingers
clothespinning children’s outfits into brightly colored popsicles,
or who’d shoveled snow just before the town’s plow pushed
the icy streets onto our driveways, or who’d spilt the golden
retriever’s ashes we’d agreed none of us would scatter until
spring when all of us could gather, blink away lopsided snowmen
blinded by hungry does. We notice the neighbors drag away
electric deer who’ve glared through our windows for so long
that our rescue puppy no longer interrogates them. We cannot
help but recall our parent’s tree, its poisoned tinsel,
or the year Sheba swallowed it while large with litter. Or was that
the year she’d widened but didn’t whelp, the year
she’d collected and mothered the ornaments,
the year she would not let any of us near the torn rabbit?
Anyway, their deer had stood since before the couple
left to have their daughter, and long after the morning they
returned without her. But, let’s not fret about Christmas
decorations from our past, or those strewn on our neighbor’s lawn.
Mud season arrives despite the stillborn, the earth rolling over
as predicted. If we live long enough, we pause
when the ground softens, the woodpile dampens
or the sparrow’s song is close enough to touch.
Eileen Cleary is the author of Child ward of the Commonwealth (Main Street Rag Press, 2019), which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, 2 a.m. with Keats (Nixes Mate, 2021) and Wild Pack of the Living (2024, Nixes Mate Books). In addition, she co-edited the anthology Voices Amidst the Virus, the featured text at the 2021 Michigan State University Filmetry Festival.