I need her like I need the falseness
of my own voice explaining death to a toddler.
Soon they’ll adorn her altar
with the golden tongues of crocuses,
and she’ll speak to me in the falseness of my own voice:
You’ll never be alone.
Always someone else is speaking
and for some while I’m speaking now too:
Your jacket, sweetie and
Time for supper and
Well I really don’t know…
In my father’s abandoned garden
untidy green rows are pushing up
soil that smells of thaw.
The rhubarb’s crenellated red heart.
Lisa Raatikainen is a writer, poet, and music teacher whose poetry has appeared in Five South, Whale Road Review, Moist Poetry Journal, 3 Elements Review, and elsewhere.
Photo by kaori nohara on Unsplash