Self-Portrait As A Mourning Dove by Sheree La Puma

Self-Portrait as A Mourning Dove
 
 
To the baby I miscarried in my 20’s
 
I try to hold on to the baby/passing/through me,           soft
                        as a blurred/landscape. Listen for a             coo
                                                after a long season of             silence
has me/pleading for                                                                rescue.
 
A life in seconds, here, then                                       gone.
One of so many wounds that go                             unnoticed.
           
She leaves before she’s ready. A fistful of                            pink
white/dandelion/curls/blown                                   free
into the gold of a California                           sky.
 
Grief has
                        a fundamental need to evolve.
 
I let my mind sleep and my heart numb.
 
Ugly bird with your drawn-out song of          lament,
what do you keep in the years since she        left,
a blank page, shredded, seeds and                   grit?
A bandage of shrubs?
 
Knowing that songs too soon would cause a different
bleeding, a scar grows in the dark of your throat.
 
After the fire/Paradise, screams. Survivors
            keep keys without locks to fit into, tattoo
                        Ponderosa/pines on arms & chests,
the once-ubiquitous trees fueled/flames/stripped
           
bone from skin. This is how you melt into earth,
an irretrievable spillage.
 
I mourn for what seems to be a lifetime, missing
the spring of you.
 
In autumn, when the winds blow/strong & cold,
            I breathe out grey/ash/let singed dreams go.
 
                        But for this, the sky might burn/wild,                      
                                                                                    forever.