Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #19, March, 2001 : -- -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8  9 -10 -11 -12
Return -- Previous -- Next

Mary McGinnis: Trail of Songs

                 

SWALLOWING THE BREAD CRUMB TRAIL

For the living,
nothing is ever enough.

The dead have always had to leave us--
the friend, the lover, the assassin,

the doubting critical parents,
the testy mother or father,

the elongated sister,
are no longer pointing the way.

The bread crumbs stick in the throats
of those who are still living.

They are the ones, they are the ones
who swallowed while they were sleeping.

The dead take off;
they're off like a t-shirt stained with classified oils.

They leave,
and we have to swallow it.

Grief has no understandable deadline or ending--
three, seven, thirty years--it doesn't matter--

the points are in our ears, noses and throats--
the dead are gone-and we must make a point of not going after them.



Copyright © 2001 Mary McGinnis.

About the poet.

Return -- Previous -- Next
Issue #19, March, 2001 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.