Vacationing with the Dead

Maybe it is the shriveled spiders,
looking like compost flakes on the rug that tell me,

these beasts were fornicating and feasting
more than I. Maybe it is the scraping sound

of sow-bug shells, sucked up and spinning
in the vacuum I employ that reminds me

of the ladybug carapaces, dozens
scattered on my dining table, that greeted me

years ago. Then, my mother had been dead

less than a day and I was not there to feed her
ice chips, soothe rattle and wheeze, or shroud

the carcass of her last breath. My memory opens
like a slash of flesh—I am the same age now

as she was then.
                     Fogging my reflection

in the picture window I watch evening
hug the swelling redbud limbs

as bats drain the air of insects.
But I am not here to grieve.

I want to know about the living
to come. How to navigate by clouds.

How the tree grows around a nail
pounded into it.

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Suzanne Edison’s recent chapbook, The Body Lives Its Undoing, was published in 2018. Poetry can be found in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Naugatuck River Review, Scoundrel Time, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, JAMA, SWWIM Every Day, and elsewhere. She is a 2019 Hedgebrook alum and teaches at Richard Hugo House in Seattle.