Cottonmouth
The bone white haze gives, in
comes the shushing collapse of thunderless rain. I wish
a sadsoft goodbye to my fourth Raleigh summer,
the last of its kind.
It’s June, it’s August, and she asks me to write a eulogy, my mom.
A eulogy, or a small happy poem, she said, for Papa.
I didn’t write it, and he saw the whole summer,
fall and winter too. He’s alive right now,
without a single sacred memory, but alive enough to hold
in his shirt from the Bureau, chin damp with all of it,
and I think I’m magic.
To write it now would condemn him, really, and I’m not ready.
Instead, I remember watching Bear die. How it hurt uncleanly.
In my lap. In pain. Barely two.
After, on the floor, I let the weight of him numb
my leg and smoothed the fur over each rib and gently,
until we had to move him.
I thought I wouldn’t want to touch him
dead, but he was ours.
The sweet black ghost of him
trailed me for months.
Summer, another. I’m more and more selfish
with these headaches that floor me, ridiculous in their pain,
but you knew, and you stayed.
Your beloved name, tomato red, forever sunning,
Your fingers dipping into my sailor’s mouth.
Hannah Keeton Hughson is an avid reader and writer, and is working on loving each season equally. Hannah is approaching a move from Raleigh back to Richmond, so that she and her husband can spend more Saturdays at the museums they love most, more Sundays with their family, and more Mondays at day jobs that somewhat fulfill them, with a backyard to write in all days of the week.