"In Praise of Pink" & "ESC.Option.Delete" in Yemassee Journal

In Praise of Pink

Sunday and I’ve not gone to church in decades. Not since I was ten years younger than the daughter I drive to see this morning, bringing coffee. Sunday under a lilac sky, city stilled in prayer, shush. Shush. My girl curled with her girl with lilac hair. They wake to the coffee. We let morning spread her pink flesh across ours. My girl didn’t always love pink or this girl. Now she dreams tulip pink flames painted on her black pick-up truck And under this Sunday sky, the cherry tree outside their window blooms. By April, it will shave its pink blossoms. By April, they will have moved to a house with a lilac bush, its budding fragrance brushing the windows, caressing the air on a Sunday in May.

ESC.OPTION.DELETE

1

Blue solstice moons scroll

                        my Facebook,

rising with a collective ahh,

                        setting with click, click, click.

Who am I kidding when I post 

                        grief

in full moon 

                        pink-cheeked emojis? 

heart                fume               cry.

2

Hands submerged in stinking compost. 

Death & mold       fingernails to elbows.

My dog claws beside me.

Together unearth 

spent tulip bulbs 

root tangle, 

decayed mouse carcass wrapped in a shroud of rotting leaves.

Dog & I dig

bones—ribs, clavicle, humerus.

Soil wedged into the splintered ends, divots.

With spit, my thumb, I scrub my father’s bones clamshell clean.