Two rabbits cavort in the grass, jump
over each other, then stretch out their torsos
to taste green after months huddled in burrows.
Spring is coming. We all feel it—this resurrection
that has nothing to do with Christ.
I want you to come back, Mother,
the same age as me. Wear your
favorite dress, the one with cornflowers.
We’ll sit in the garden side by side, watch
the rabbits eat rose petals, listen to
the song of the cedar waxwing—
compare our moles in the same places
on our thighs.
You have been dead long enough to tell
me your secrets. Did you have an affair
with the town’s millionaire? Run away
from home when you were twenty?
Try to abort your fifth pregnancy?
Or maybe we’ll just drink iced tea
with mint from the garden. Talk about
when we shopped at Wilson’s and
forgot where we parked the car. Or when
I drank Daddy’s beer thinking it was
ginger ale.
We’ll crinkle our noses when we laugh,
the same wrinkles, high cheekbones.
How familiar it all feels to be with you
again, in the sun before the chill, before
you return to ashes buried beneath the lilacs.
Look, Mother. Look at the rabbits.
How they race back and forth
as if they’ve just discovered
they have legs.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 1.
Born in Massachusetts, Margaret Chula has traveled overland through Asia, England, Japan, and now makes her home on the Portland skyline. She has published fourteen collections of poetry including, most recently, Weeding the Labyrinth. Her haibun memoir, Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto, was awarded a 2022 NYC Big Book Award in Multicultural Nonfiction. Maggie has given readings and led workshops at haiku conferences around the world. She has also served as president of the Tanka Society of America, Poet Laureate for Friends of Chamber Music, and on the Advisory Board for the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University.See all items about Margaret Chula
