As bitter silt washes
over your tongue,
name each child—
Make an oblation
deep in the loam
of your heart.
Bury it so
even you will forget. Stare
into the void
of your cup.
Do you see
their myriad deaths
in this cloak of dusk?
I dreamed again
of the bloody foal
born in winter.
Night
after night, her dying
is a dark awakening; wind
skitters across the lake.
The woods are whispering muses.
I am afraid to go
where memory takes me.
My only child
stares me down
with hatred
while a tube is snaked
down her throat. A black
foam slick of pill
fragments
drains out of her mouth—
I am afraid to go
beyond what is now,
and now and now.
Forgetting is not the end.
The wind speaks wolf
as I drag on a cigarette,
contemplating an ember's
becoming ash.
The trees distill
to charcoal lines
on a black page.
Clare L. Martin's debut collection of poetry, Eating the Heart First, was published fall 2012 by Press 53 as a Tom Lombardo Selection. Martin's poetry has appeared in Avatar Review, Blue Fifth Review, Melusine, Poets and Artists and Louisiana Literature, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Dzanc Books' Best of the Web, for Best New Poets and Sundress Publication's Best of the Net. Martin founded and directs the Voices Seasonal Reading Series in Lafayette, Louisiana, which features new and established Louisiana and regional writers. She serves as Poetry Editor of MadHat Annual and Editor of MadHat Lit.
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