01-04-2023
Sandy Coomer
INSTEAD OF CLEARING OUT HIS CLOSET, I PAINT FLOWERS
The background is a blurred blend
of brown, gray, cream. The pallet knife scrapes
the canvas in all directions, and where the colors
meet, a new hue is born. I step back, measure
the reach of my heartbeat in my temple,
how it calms when my hands are streaked
with paint, how the light blooming through
the window loosens my throat. Don’t
go through all his things at once, my sister
advised and I repeat those words to ochre
and umber. Surrendering to grief is best done
in stages. I add another layer—emerald green,
golden yellow. I want to catch the sun on my knife,
slit its rays to prove the life in still life. In his closet,
shirts span the length of shadows. Trousers hang
neatly folded and shoes line the floor—reminders
of a world that no longer exists. But purple coneflower
catches the day and pulls the orange hearts of poppies
and coreopsis. They bend into the spray of scarlet
gladiola, the tight bud of delphinium. Phlox blinks
back the grave and I am in the garden surrounded
by grace, a greening fuse that sparks the seeds
and lets them grow again—like love tends to do
when you let it rise from the dark places, ever
blooming, ever warm, always turning toward the light.
DAFFODILS
in the slender vase
the daffodils frown
stems curved
with the weight of dying
yellow blooms
I sketch them
on the back
of an envelope
that used to hold
the electric bill
I sit at the table
and sip lukewarm coffee
mostly
I wait
for the fist of grief
to unclench
I’ve learned
there’s no rushing
the journey
when there’s so much
traveling inside you
I hold the edge
of a deep field
where the daffodils
offer gold
to a world
uncomfortable with death
and find a strange comfort
in the way they
lay down
a troubled beauty
wither
without a word of excuse
or complaint
or apology
COMBUSTIBLE
My therapist says attraction
feels the same at sixty as it does
at sixteen, the quickening
behind ribs, beneath belly.
She says when I met you we
were tendered for flame, both of us
like powdered glass and chemical
burn. I tell her I never wanted you
and she asks for the definition
of want, says love and hate
can be a breath apart, sometimes
interchangeable. The body
is wired for oxidation. The body
is a deeper beast, fading
into dry grass which burns fast.
See the prairies and the meadows
in rain-starved August, the pine
needles and stripped bark,
the beetles pulling sap. I drag
a broken tree limb to the burn
pile, watch magnolia leaves curl,
sizzle in heat. My therapist asks
if we were more fantasy than real,
if the idea of us was what I wanted.
I ask for the definition of real.
I follow the shape of a leaf
floating into the blue-wisp sky,
the edges orange, defined,
then destroyed with heat.
I tell her I loved you. I tell her
we burned each other, first
with our tongues, then with our
wild, hard hands.
Sandy Coomer is a poet, artist, Ironman athlete, and social entrepreneur from Nashville, TN. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and she is the author of three poetry chapbooks and a full-length collection, Available Light (Iris Press). She is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and her poem, "Calligraphy" was a 2019 Best of the Net finalist. Sandy is a past poetry mentor in the AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship Program and the founding editor of the online poetry journal Rockvale Review. She is the founder and director of Rockvale Writers' Colony in College Grove, TN, a not-for-profit organization that exists to support and educate writers of all genres and backgrounds. She is a teacher, a dreamer, and an explorer. Her favorite word is "believe."
