by Christiana Doucette

The tangled chestnut blades land lump by lump
on the slate near the steps, where I lean on a cedar beam,
staring at the too-soon fall around my mother.

The wait between each snip slips sideways
through the cold sunbeams and bounces
off the gray-green rock to ache my eyes.

She is catching the stiff sun, carrying it in her arms,
on her pale face. She holds its translucent glow
on her lap, between her long fingers on the black cloth.

And I want to rock it, swaddle the almost warmth
in my too-small baby blanket until it warms,
until it dozes. But each long, felted lock

tips through the air, through the antiseptic scent
of iodine, through the months of time each week
leaves behind. She is a thin maple sapling,

wrapping the dark cloth around her frail limbs.
She is shedding whirligig wishes that spin
the world dizzy, the stylist’s scissors flash silver frost,

release the red gold spinners to the silent gale.
There are frozen rivers in her eyes,
melted icicles in mine as I hug the stairs.

She is nestless hollow after last night’s storm.
And my hands are empty. My arms full
of nothing to be done but watch each spinning jenny fall.

Christiana Doucette spends mornings in her garden, because poetry and flowers grow best with space. She judges poetry for the San Diego Writers Festival. Her poetry appears in several anthologies and has been set to music and performed on NPR. She received the Kay Yoder Scholarship for American History 2024. Leslie Zampetti (Open Book Literary) represents her full-length works. She has recent poetry in Rattle, Connecticut River Review, and Salvation South.