If There Was a Graveyard

Meghan Kathleen

I wonder if it would be different
if there was
a graveyard to visit,
a headstone to hold
my brother’s name
the way I no longer can.

I imagine it softer
to gather the supermarket flowers,
string them along a snow-covered hill,
place stone on top of stone,
and plead with whatever deity would take him
on the edge of thirty:
Why not wait until his roots run gray?

Couldn’t my Irish bones bargain for more,
take his place in June’s fatal prophecy?

I like to pretend that the seasons will return me
but loss forever welcomes a specter into your mold.
The child I was
when you had a pulse is now a memory
just like your freckled nose,
cowlicked hair,
the New Balance sneakers you would never take off.

Six years gone
and the enduring truth is that
living after the funeral is all negotiation:
Today I won’t miss you
Because you’re just across town,
or at summer camp,
sunscreen lathered onto your shoulders.
Maybe you’re just lingering at the restaurant,
charming the regulars
While deep-frying russet potatoes.

But I always arrive home
to do sorrow’s biding each tender morning
like any woman acquainted with thereafter,
waiting for the epiphany
of what is no longer to meet me.

Is grief all that’s left of you,
graveyard or not?
Will there ever come a dawn
where I can see the urn
and retreat,
knees licked in dirt from the gravedigging,
feet on the edge of a bridge,
tempted but never sold?

Meghan Kathleen is a writer originally from Montville, NJ and based in Long Island City, NY. She holds a B.A. in English from Syracuse University, with minors in Women & Gender Studies and Psychology. Her work spans freelance writing, public relations, and original poetry featured in literary  magazines including Wingless Dreamer Publisher, Cathexis Northwest Press, You Might Need To Hear This, Poets Choice, Half and One, The Closed Eye Open, WILDsound Writing Festival, and The Nelligan Review. She also shares her creative work online via her Instagram: @meghankathleenwriter and website meghankathleenwriter.squarespace.com. 

Art: Ellen June Wright’s work revolves around the power of color and the emotions and memories they evoke. She is inspired by the works of Stanley Whitney, Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Frank Bowling, Howardena Pindell, Jamaican Artist Cecil Cooper and others. Her art appears in LETTERS, Gulf Stream Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, Breakwater Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Hole In The Head Review, Oyster River Pages, Kitchen Table Quarterly, NOVUS Literary Journal and others. Her work was included in the 2024 Newark Arts Festival and featured at the HACPAC in NJ. To see more visit: https://8-ellen-wright.pixels.com/