Crushed Fruit
Risa Denenberg
—For Mary A.
-1-
Another patient died today.
I know the scent, a scent
I know well, but not at all, crumpled into a promise made
five years ago, when it was time to retire,
to go on at least until she died, never planning
beyond this moment.
I can’t describe this feeling—
the way clouds claim nothing as they darken into rain.
I waited expectantly, impatient at times, for suffering
to end, but hers or mine? Does it comfort the family
to say now the heavy lifting is over?
How her longing for heaven softened that bed?
-2-
O death: you are not a river, but I have careened your banks my whole career,
studying your silences, submitting to your elegies. Another Mary
plants her son at my feet, so I will know how deep pain can run.
But who can know the sorrows of another?
Tears surprise me today. I’ve held back so much for so long.
I’m scored along the edge, chest ripe for rending.
Yet haven’t I’ve walked this path before, strewn
with the cloying scent of Easter lilies, my own left-behind longings?
My litany of corpses— dare I count them?
-3-
I choke over my words, feel the soft stir of her in the air,
and isn’t this fragrance her must—the crushed fruit of her?
It’s true: I’ve worked too long. I should retire.
O death: walking past you, so often, I look the other way,
ask the buried to forgive the inelegant clatter of my steps, beg sunflowers
in the field to turn away their yellow faces.
I have my stash of powder, the knowledge.
Also patience. Finding something to live for
is my talent, this small raft.
Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state where she works as a nurse practitioner. She is a co-founder of Headmistress Press; curator at The Poetry Café Online; and the reviews editor at River Mouth Review. Her most recent publications include the full-length collection, slight faith (MoonPath Press, 2018) and the chapbook, Posthuman, finalist in the Floating Bridge 2020 chapbook competition.