There is only so much warmth
I can still offer you, only so many
saplings that will survive this winter
uncovered. I sketch deer when they sleep
in the snow, those dark eyes
begging: the only way they know
how to pray, to ask forgiveness.
I sketch them with flowers pouring
from their mouths, name them for great-aunts
who died before I could know them
as anything other than ghosts in hallways,
still drifting between rooms.
You do not feel the weight
of this house, or understand why I creak,
sometimes, under all of it. We do not sleep
until we know the sun has not abandoned us.
She will not leave us to all this shivering.
She will not leave us to all this bone.
Mary Simmons is a queer poet from Cleveland, Ohio. She is an MFA candidate at Bowling Green State University, where she also serves as an assistant editor for Mid-American Review. She has work in or forthcoming from Exist Otherwise, The Santa Clara Review, The Shore, One Art, and others.