Oracle - Spoon River Poetry Review

Oracle

My daughter knows a nettle stings.

Still she wants the bitter leaf,

            metal on the tongue.

Sweet green rising at our feet,

she wants the needle leaf—

            my mother kneels in the dirt, singing.

Sweet green under our feet.

All the winter branches go up in smoke.

            My mother kneels, listen,

she spreads white root-hairs into dark,

all the winter bones go up in smoke.

            Her death a tree beginning to bud.

I spread white ashes over dark.

Across the stream, my daughter laughing,

            her death a tree, sleeping.

She wants to know if people burn.

In smoke, my daughter laughing,

            she sees that nettles sting,

she asks do people burn.

Millstone on my tongue.

- Published with a slightly different form in Spoon River Poetry Review, 46.2 Winter 2021