Around Us, the Desert Naked and Brown

by Thea Sullivan

My mother hunches on her hands and knees and I sit
on top of her, trying to balance lightly on the humped

bench of her back. I bump fingertips along her spine.
I’m sorry, I say. She wheezes, chokes out,

You don’t know what it is to love a child.
Each dry breath cracks my ribs wider, my enormous

living weight pressing her deeper into the earth. I glance over
to where the girl is buried, the one she loved. Dirt freshly piled

in a small black mound. A fist of roses. We mourn her
separately. I’m sorry, I try again but my voice

comes out a growl. O, furious arms, O pugilist heart. I want
to tell her I love her, and I do—but the ground
keeps sinking and her one good ear is plugged with dirt.

Quay note: also by this author Mission Santa Barbara