small clouds of dust rise in the air,
nearly imperceptible, like those that lift
from the ground whenever I turn up
at the family grave. My mother
is such a young ghost, still fumbling
for her lit cigarette in the night.
The last time I visited, grass
had choked the small flat stone
carved with her name and dates.
My perpetual care is not to dwell
on her, but every several years,
like a prodigal gardener, I return
to pull the weeds from our eyes.
–
M. L. Brown is the author of Call It Mist, winner of the Three Mile Harbor Press Book Prize, and Drought, winner of the Claudia Emerson Chapbook award. Her work has appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Anacapa Review, among other journals and anthologies, including Blue Will Rise Over Yellow: An International Poetry Anthology for Ukraine.