Savannah Grant

Lying on the floor like a cat, you, unhuman, so they will come and sniff you and I want to ask how you have been lost. I drive under the darkness of our mother’s inherited poverty, an unexpected wooden cross on Jewell Hill, a dirt road in light so November, I forgot to get gas; there are no answers. The day after your birthday it happens every year, our mother remembers me. I give you a blueberry popsicle and you cry when she calls you. Some devil blows through her junipers, chocolate wine taken down from pantry shelves but I won’t kill myself today because I don’t think like you do, baby sister, you just don’t seem to care. Sing tura-lura-lural, tura-lura-lai: there’s a picture of her in a ballet dress and my arms fall the same way her arms did at my age but even so I will not fall the same onto hardwood floor’s grit. It’s just scrambled eggs up there, knots in the yarn, baby sister, it’s why you won’t learn how to drive. A rooster crows from the basement; sing: tura-lura-lural, tura-lura-lai; now she’s just chicken shit, all the lights on at 3am.

My Head Is A Kitchen

my head is a kitchen

filled with smoke

breathe in burned butter

I don’t remember

what I do when I leave

but it settles on all the windows

a March night isn’t necessarily evil but

it wants to remind you of something

with the windows finally open

the air smells like insects in a way

that reassures the end

of winter but habits cling

like fog throwing back high beams

and some chill

in spring’s heatwave

all this grief

all this lying

on the floor all day

like tar it sticks

drips from the corners of my mouth

he bought ivory sheets

when I wanted plaid

and how easy it is

to be picked up off the floor by my elbows again

just to cut carrots for dinner at 10pm

Bearclaw In December

I still have the hunting knife

you gave me

although the other two were lost

at baseball games

you loved to give me things

anything I looked at

New Mexico pottery and plastic trucks

even at nineteen

back against the electric fireplace

not sure where to look when your missing toe

told stories of the Citadel and General Lee

glory grew a white beard and couldn’t leave

the brown leather chair

You and the sheets

were made of blood spots

thin Christmas carols mixed with radio commercials

only linoleum gleamed

I left as old people gagged in the dining room

onion rings and fried chicken

sweet potato fries

coleslaw

all wasted in front of hanging head

and eyes I wouldn’t see open again

I couldn’t wash the salt from the back of my throat

we wait

in a way it’s already done

we all end up with our faces covered

in who knows what

It wasn’t you there 

wearing the clothes we picked out

they got your smile wrong anyway

we rested our arms over our heads like you used to

in between shaking everyone’s hands 

in our new black shoes

someone said I was your raging river

the drive home

I told my sister the Carolina fog came down for you

the sun the next day almost like spring

a bugle humming taps

I cried only when

you were above that irrevocable hole

yet our great-aunt can still make us cheese toast

and we can laugh in your kitchen

comparing dresses 

and how we’re all drawn to bagpipes

I can carry your coffin 

and eat a roast beef sandwich

in the same damn day

Saint

If I cry over a cat

it means they will die

and my wet hair brushed your head

I wanted to draw how your paws were locked, folded

wrapped in your favorite sheet

covering your face, grinning

and open with pain

I watched my dad dig two feet down

in a sweaty shirt

the way August shows you

how death

smells like cold new dirt and an old white sheet

and sounds like many birds

Indian Summer

across the third rail

someone babbles about faggots

and a last October wasp

clicks against the subway light

these are the days

I guess

of waiting

to fix ways I thought shouldn’t be like this

Savannah Grant lives in Northampton, MA with three rescue cats. She attended Smith College to study English, studio art, and poetry. A few of her poems are published here and there, including a former issue of Sixfold. In her spare time she enjoys biking, exploring around town, drawing, and photography.