Pantoum for Holding Ourselves Together
Elizabeth Edelglass
Don’t cry, I say, jangled awake at 5 am,
sister on the phone, six trees through her roof,
including our favorite hundred-year-old oak,
where we used to pose the kids for photos.
sister on the phone, six trees through her roof,
including our favorite hundred-year-old oak,
where we used to pose the kids for photos.
Sister on the phone, six trees through her roof,
soon she’ll be on the noon-time news, in the mud,
where we used to pose the kids for photos,
branches amok, nests annihilated.
Soon she’ll be on the noon-time news in the mud,
dripping sweat, sorting everything wet,
branches amok, attic annihilated.
She, who always mothered me,
dripping sweat, sorting everything wet
uncloaked by our favorite hundred-year-old oak.
She, who always mothered me –
Don’t try, I say, jangled awake at 5 am. Just cry.
Elizabeth Edelglass is a fiction writer and book reviewer who turned to poetry during pandemic isolation. Her fiction has won the Reynolds Price Fiction Prize, the William Saroyan Centennial Prize, the Lilith short story contest, and the Lawrence Foundation Prize from Michigan Quarterly Review. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Fish Prize and won third prize in the Voices of Israel Reuben Rose Competition. Instagram: elizabeth.edelglass
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