Strayed
peonies in bloom
remind a woman
of the best sex of her life
at night I cut blossoms
from all the neighbor’s yards
to honor my mother’s infidelity
she holds a cigarette to her lips
in the last photograph of her
before the accident
every week I take one cigarette
from the pack and smoke it in homage
to all women who try so hard to be good
until they can’t
*
the path backward is made of quicksand
and the heavy breath of horses
my mother’s lover is back there
a mosaic of other people’s stories
it is hard to distinguish each element
locust blossoms falling from high branches
a full ashtray on the kitchen table
the smell of hard rain
posture of a woman ready to step
from one life to another
*
I was small when I got lost in a pasture
somewhere close to home yet unrecognizable
I try to calm this memory of horses
and grasses as I survey the trail
I hear my parents fighting in the distance
the heart of a larger animal
beats in my small chest
*
you can see my dead mother
in the language of my hands
here the grass is wet
with spittle bugs and dew
a pasture with three horses
it is very early in the past
*
I wonder if she felt heard
or only seen
in a certain light
I wonder if she wanted in
or wanted out
at the end of the backward path
there are sparks and shards
and an accordion of steel
*
the shadow of the locust tree breathes
the surface of the lake breathes in the darkness
sheets on the empty bed
the mourning dove resting on the pavement
sand on the backward path breathes
the bramble at the edge of the pasture breathes
the dog anxious at the door of the past
snow at the scene of the accident
the child I was
asleep in the wreckage
was breathing
but my mother
the other woman of a stranger
ceased
Alison Prine’s debut collection of poems, Steel (Cider Press Review, 2016) was named a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Five Points, Harvard Review and Prairie Schooner among others. She lives and works in Burlington, Vermont. Visit her at alisonprine.com