By Elia Hohauser-Thatcher
Ravenna, Michigan
I.
We sink our dead in the acre of backyard
amid the trillium. Aunt Mary with her stutter,
Uncle Tom with his walker, maple leaves of russet and copper.
Dad buried his anger here, and up grew an oak.
He sneaks here on quarter moons,
peels off bark for tea, slips twigs under my pillow.
Mom buried swollen bladders of wine
and flax grew, twine in little figure eights
pulled taught—pinioned her wrists.
I buried a figurine in the shape of a fertile woman
smeared in layers of sap. My eyes glazed over
as a thousand tiny cocks burst from the ground.
II.
Today, I take down names of every worm dried up
on the Musketawa trail, syrupy shapes I recognize
from cable news, where anchors chant selkie songs
and bodies are tagged, scrubbed, quantified.
Blonde children glide through orchard grass, rush into reeds
that wiggle and squeak as a farmer clears branches.
Up the path to his barn, a Stainless Banner sails,
but it’s more important that lawns wear two-inch haircuts,
so I trace runes on his yellow grass. This symbolic ritual
like drying hurricanes with toilet paper.
I jog to Conklin and back, disregard these violences—
rattling chains, simulated corpses strewn about,
lungs overflowing with water.
III.
In 1866, Edwin Thatcher whips his horses
from Pennsylvania to Michigan. The town
sounds like Northern Italy, sounds fancy.
He ends up in a giant marsh, shrugs,
decides to farm. Evenings, he tucks
his five children into bed, tells Catherine
he’s going to the pole barn to work on something,
which turns out to be a fifth of gin. The moon sashays,
shows her ankles between wooden bars
as peeping Tom stars sneak a look.
Edwin, naked and dead drunk in the hay, laughs
at the sexy moon, the horny stars. Next morning
trillium grows from his ears.
IV.
Night’s jacket covers my shame.
Two bears on muted laptop screen
roar their pleasure as Labatt Blue bottles
twinkle on the nightstand. I ignore
familiar spirits in our backyard.
The tv in my room screams in horror,
the tv in the living room screams in horror,
the tv in mom’s room screams in horror.
Our houseplants droop and flicker, oak bark
and flax seed covers my comforter,
the moaning intensifies into screeching cacophony,
I sleep on top of it all.
V.
The coffee I drink is so strong it reflects my present:
Maroon half-circles of insomnia, mom’s boyfriend
accounting at the kitchen table. Mom is asleep in my coffee,
dreaming off cabernet and last night’s scuffles.
She’s so tiny she fits right in my mug,
much easier to take care of her in there.
She does not stir despite the caffeine,
and I’d rather her not see me thinking lustily
of little soldiers growing in our backyard. I hear water
running in the next room, seeping in from our flooded backyard.
My ancestors thud dully against the walls. A haze rises
and dissipates from the grass outside like a jacket cast off.
Mom rises too, grows into five-foot-eight with an apology,
and among our chorus of I love you
I love you, too, the trillium grows a little higher.
Elia Hohauser-Thatcher is the author of The Prophet’s Toothbrush, a chapbook of poetry published by Finishing Line Press. Currently, Elia is a PhD Candidate in Rhetoric & Composition at Wayne State University and teaches creative writing in Detroit Public Schools as a Writer-in-Residence with InsideOut Literary Arts.