Before streetlights robbed this sky of mystery, before
condos usurped sunrises, and daily joggers pounded away
at the plate glass of eternity, this is where my father
learned what dying means. His dog sprinted
for the farmhouse across the street, staining pavement first
with blood, then memory. He tells me this
as we linger, a final time, too long in his parents’ driveway,
when I ask what he remembers of growing up here.
And if he was too young then to understand how suddenly
each of us might pass into timelessness, then all of us
must be. All packed into one van—mom, him,
my siblings, me—we stare back at the house, at the window
where we’d stood together each Christmas, faithful photos.
We stare as if someone would wave behind dark glass,
left behind, someone we’ll see again. There must be more
to remember. When we emptied the rooms
of tables and televisions, chairs and china, we skirted
invisible furniture, following paths etched deeper than sense.
Our bodies know what we can’t see. So when I turn my eyes
toward tattered lots across the street, toward floodlit
tufts of crabgrass, two-by-fours, and port-o-johns,
I remember how stars once pressed here. How far the sunrise
would stretch across the field before I was born,
and before my father too. And maybe the farmhouse
is still here, shattered siding brightening soil like shards
of chalk, but front door cameras avert their eyes
from the dead, busying themselves only with what moves.
We pull away, tires creaking, wind tugging at sawdust
stuffed in the cracked cement as he steers us past
an eastbound road that leads nowhere yet but driveways.
There is more to remember—this endlessness inside us, grief
asking the earth to correspond. When I look up again
tomorrow, it will comfort me to know the stars
which haven’t reached us haven’t touched anything
we’ve lost.
–
Samuel Burt is a poet and artist from Grinnell, Iowa. A 2022 winner of the AWP’s Intro Journals Project, Sam’s work has been featured in Salt Hill, Colorado Review, Ghost City Review, and The Journal. While pursuing his poetry MFA at Bowling Green State University, Sam serves as blog editor for Mid-American Review and as a reader for Palette Poetry.