Dante

• Carmen Williams, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2022

I’m always holding something, can never pull my sleeves down low enough.
Left to stare outside instead, demand this flesh stays in my body a little longer, call it names and hope it stays silent, quiet, deadened.
Another flower flits itself --
Back into dust, into the blear of the streetlights,
Chasing your roots back to the ground, desperate wishing to be over / older / cold linoleum and growing pains.
I have watched you - - dedicate yourself, your hands, your sinew, to the ember,
Tend to the flame and howl as I kneel to worship the ashes.
You like to swipe with your nails; there’s a tear caught in your lashes / so you take a pair of scissors to them
-- If you’re not going to cry then I’ll do it for you.

Look up from the inferno, Dante. Out the back window, into the garden. Tell me, did you notice what is buried back there?
A small, unmarked anthill grave.
I put up a wooden cross,
So I could remember the feeling.
The sharp bite and pinch on the insides of my cheeks. (Fiery and raging have long since been buried)
But the termites ate at the base, sent it toppling to the ground.
Buried under the changing leaves - - Is this moving on?