Mom’s last text to me was three photos:
a tangle of green briars Dad culled
above the backyard, a black shatter
of shale shards, and a pile of tree trunks,
even the oak tall enough to forget us
climbing too high to rescue Frank,
the calico who jumped before my sister
made the third branch, a yellow
poof when he landed in the forsythia
forgotten by the kudzu. I wished
I’d caught it on film. I couldn’t
text anyone Dad asked me to contact.
I listened to them gasp and choke,
burst like a baking soda volcano,
gurgling words, fluids, questions
about her mind, pre-existing conditions.
Her brother couldn’t finish asking if
I thought she knew. I thought of Frank,
hissing and feral for weeks after his fall.
A third cousin said she’d already received
a half dozen text condolences. Everyone
wanted to tell someone she’d passed.
To talk about how they didn’t know
how to feel. I wanted to tell them
about the briars coiled like a Dyson sphere
by the doghouse, her hand reaching in,
her caption asking if it was the thorns
bending the light or the wrinkles
on the back of her hand, the same
lines as mine. Who is this?
a nephew texted back.
I found a reply in draft:
Definitely the thorns.
Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. A poet, information professional, and Madonna mega-fan, Ben is the host and a co-coordinator of POETRY STACKED at the University of Cincinnati, as well as a co-host of the MLVC Podcast. He is the author of It Was Never Supposed to Be (Variant Literature,) Twang (ELJ Editions) and Stiff Wrist (fourteen poems.) His work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Florida Review, Palette Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other publications.