When I write a poem again,

I will write about the basement
of the Presbyterian Church where I raised
my hand and asked the teacher why
Christ’s side wound looks like a vagina.
And the fight that I thought would end
my parents’ marriage on the way home
before I knew what actually ends
a marriage. I will write about the woman
in the window across the driveway
at my grandparents. The one who watched
our lives go by when we never thought
of ourselves as interesting, the way it always
seemed to help us perform.
And how she became the family inside
joke and all of the nosiest people
are forever called Mrs. Starr. The real family
joke was that she made us all feel
special. And maybe it was because we never actually met her,
never touched her, never bridged the imaginary
property line. Her old woman hands around the drapes,
the side table with its clear glass ashtray
but not one burning cigarette. How even in the blistering
heat, she never opened the window a crack
and when she died on that Saturday in July,
it rained unusually hard
the driveway flooded
and the backyard flooded
and all of the bird graves rose the dead
animals untucked
from their soggy cardboard coffins.
The little shell headstones strewn everywhere
and I ran around shoving broken
scallop shells into my pockets.

Kate Sweeney is a Best of the Net Finalist and Pushcart Prize Nominee. She has poems most recently appearing or forthcoming from Poet Lore, Poetry Online, Northwest Review, Salthill Journal & other places. Kate has a chapbook, The Oranges Will Still Grow Without Us (Ethel).