a poem by Claire Taylor
If you have a good life I think you’re obligated
to say it: I have a good life
Which doesn’t mean I don’t suffer
my own hands at my throat
aggressive and needy. In a hospital bed my father bleeds
without reason. My son in tender healing
weeps. The heart breaks and breaks
and breaks again, an ever-repeating puzzle
of increasingly smaller pieces.
I spend my evenings putting it back together,
an image slowly emerging. The sweet bay magnolia
in my yard has begun to flower. It needs pruning,
limbs sliced away to help it grow.
I have neglected this bit of brutal
care, waited longer than I’d intended
to plant the Dahlia bulbs. You can rely on me
to fail in some small way:
drop the egg, shatter the glass;
I have been trying to leave
since the moment I got here, forever
running away from myself. In the garden
I pull weeds, count tendrils, try
to remember, beneath all this dirt is
the quiet work of survival,
the small seeds
of a good life.
Claire Taylor is a writer for both adult and youth audiences, and the founding editor of Little Thoughts Press, a literary magazine for young readers. She lives with her family in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old stone house where birds love to roost. You can find her online at clairemtaylor.com.
