The 2River View 22.2 (Winter 2018)
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Clara Burghelea
 

 
Brook Water

The stones unwashed, the sands unclenched
I place them around the heart,
an armor of grit over glassy wounds,
stringed under the ribs
of the river that is you, mother,
flowing into me, endlessly.

You are word-built,
yet I can seize
the whole of you into my mind.
I wish I could go back to you
and the way you poured into words.
You run like cold brook water over my heart.

 
Prayer to My Mother

If I were to bury you anew
there would be no marked grave,
no painted cross or hired mourners.
For all the fresh gravel you were fed
a union of
wives, mothers, daughters
forgotten and erased,
would recite next to you.
Stagnant water would flood,
barren women would bear,
soft rains would heal,
men would return.
In my dreams, you plunge at me
through the night
laughing your laughter
as only the dead can surprise us.
If I were to have you again,
I’d cradle that sound,
I’d write you in poems,
soft-skinned, ripe.
If I were to bury you anew,
I’d lie next to you,
crafted words needless
beauty and grief ours.
 

Clara Burghelea is Editor at Large of Village of Crickets. Her poems are published in journals such as Ambit Magazine, Full Crow Press, Indiana Voice Journal, Peacock Journal, and Quail Bell Magazine.

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