by Lindsay Diem

Winter was my greatest fear
       dragonflies gone quiet

My mother fixated on cold
       her body in a coffin under snow

My poetry died, or so I thought
       I couldn’t craft her here
       I thought it was one more thing her death took from me

until I started writing this poem

I started noticing her everywhere
       coffee shop light
       garage paint peeling
       tattoo ink on a woman’s arm in a restaurant

a wooden craft you could purchase for ten tickets
       a blackout poem I made to show my students

The ache
       when he left
like the passing of my father
wide scar on my arm at twenty-three
       the look on her face when she realized she was dying

No one should carry what we saw
       It isn’t poetic to write about
       It doesn’t become art easily
       It doesn’t become anything clean

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About the Author:

Lindsay Diem is a middle school English teacher whose poetry has appeared both online and in print. Her work has been published in The Tower Journal, The Quail Bell Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Stray Branch, The Front Porch Review, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, and Reality Break Press. Her educational writing, including a piece on adapting a persona poetry unit during COVID-19, has appeared in Michigan Reading Journal. She lives and writes in Michigan. Her favorite apple is Honeycrisp—for the way it reminds her of late October.