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The Day I Heard
Rebecca Watkins


The day I heard
 
we reached sixty thousand deaths, 
I noticed the slumbering
rosebush in the yard
 
had become a tumbleweed
of thorns, brittle sticks 
and blackened buds, 
where life had trickled out.
 
With my pruners in hand, 
I separated branches, 
thrust my body forward 
welcoming the sting
of the thorns on skin
through my shirtsleeves, 
pinpricks through my gloves,
a drum roll of small fires
snagging my skin as I dove in.
 
I snipped and lopped until a bare
wobbly outline stood,
a house without curtains 
unlocking the sky. 
 
Later in the tub, my cuts stinging 
under warm water. I ran my finger 
over the puncture, the shape 
of a checkmark or a wing 
on the soft part of my belly.
 
I thought about a girl I knew
who cut herself—those tightropes of scars 
on her arms and legs–
a banner, a release
because sometimes crying isn’t enough 
and pain is proof, however temporary,
that she still stood. 
 
I felt no need to offer an apology,
I knew the roses would return by July,
brash pink shouts of summer
when our grief is tenfold.
Picture
From the series Abandoned, by Elizabeth Jaeger
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