In the Index of My Days
I.
lichen, cold mornings,
earth, my mother, sleepy
afternoons, songbirds
in canopy
II.
i have been driving for miles
& miles, always this back & forth
between us. i want to tell you
that the yellow flower-weeds
have started growing
in walkway cracks
again
III.
i am blissful in sitting,
in sitting around people for whom my heart
always beats so heavily & sitting below
the growing canopy of trees, feeling
whispers of rain fall from their leaves
IV.
in stillness, my body stops ringing.
i remember that i am full
of grief & longing & that this has always
always been the case, but all that feeling
is consequence of the fact that i am here,
& that all of everything
is happening
always
happening
V.
& right now i am yawning in my 8am class,
drinking coffee with too much sugar
while in another city, a mother is choosing the color
of her infant son’s coffin, & at home, my father sits
in his kitchen brewing coffee, alone.
somewhere, along highway 85,
you are sitting in traffic, humming
along quietly to the radio
VI.
i am overrun with memories
of all this between us,
rooms where i have been held carefully
along the small of my back. memories
of being a child playing kick-can in the yard
with other children, & even today—
the soft voices we use with one another
on warm, quiet afternoons.
there are little schools of fish
swimming through my eyes
all day
& night
VII.
these days i speak of myself in past tense,
writing about today (yesterday)
as though tomorrow is no more
than early morning dew settling on blades
of grass. the whole sky this morning was ringed
in peach & apricot at the horizon, the honeysuckle
wearing a faint veil of pale green, the daffodils & dandelions
have been patient in the cold, the new moon is coming,
& the birds, always the birds. i think of days when this weather
meant you were not so far away, & the light,
changing so fast i believe i can see you
turning a corner & then the rain comes in,
smelling of pine & moss, a kind
of shameless intrusion on the quiet seeds of spring
Michelle Delouise-Ashmore is a Native Hawaiian poet living in Arkansas, where she is working on her degree in creative writing at Hendrix College. Her work has been published in Rookie Mag, Rising Phoenix Review, and The Aonian, and she has a poem forthcoming in The Olive Press. She is a reader for Hendrix College’s literary magazine, The Aonian, and an intern at E&JG Little Press. She can often be found tripping over her own feet and spilling coffee on everything she loves.
