Every time Mom doesn’t call
I think you are dead.
…………I recall the old yard
…………playset legs jolting in long grass
…………as we swung toward ripe green branches
…………carving shapes of light on our skin
…………giggling mouths ringed popsicle red
…………when I saw, limp in the garden,
…………my beloved pet sunflower
…………green hairy stem bent L-ward
…………black seeds and sunshine petals
…………facing earth muddied
…………by tears and sprinkler feet
…………my red-eyed face next to hers
…………a single photo the only proof left.
No loss, no uprooting
could prepare me
for your pain later in life
lined wrists, midnight calls to 9-1-1
substances you thirsted for
like sun.
As my mind reckons my heart
…………recalling how you were the one
…………to break her stem, simple mistake
…………as we ran wild in the yard —
I fear you are just as fragile.

– Kara Cochran