Perennial
Carry one half cup of death, shards of bone, bits of skin, a scorched vessel.
Carry pink and red camellias shedding organs, barely alive, dust-colored at the edges.
Carry the downy feathered bird who fell from the nest then
Carry the empty home of woven yarns, bed with feathers sifting gravity to dress
the hollow bowl.
Carry fire, burned hands that sieve through burdened hands leaving the bone soup.
Carry the bitter sulfurous root.
Carry half an antidote to atone for father below the etched stone, scatter here the solemn cup
like pollen sneezing the solitary season.
Carry drops of dew to baste union of two.
Carry soon mother’s last spasm as maxim: don’t live(die) among old people.
Carry a rose, snug bud longing for youth to fruit.
Carry the spade of soil and compost, knead sun for onions and lettuces, cut in fat
for hungry worms.
Carry spring rain, aroma of scallions, mud, and filtered sun to stir into stew.
Carry another half cup, an offering softer for her, to season three you loved.
Carry a finger tied with string. Perennially
Carry imperative—Bloom. In your grandparent’s garden
Bring the sun.
Susan Mason Scott lives in Madison, Indiana, along a bend of the Ohio River. She is a mathematics instructor serving students seeking a GED. She enjoys both teaching math and writing poetry, sometimes entertaining the intersection between the two. Several journals have published her poems.