The Ending Is A Sharp Point To How I Was

my mother tells me about the symmetry of the roses
on her own mother’s headstone
how they hold within
that ancient compressed animal
her spirit —
and in the end we are sitting on a bench in the garden
I blunting the silence
seeded between her and my childhood —
the wind snapping the echinacea
the crushed lavender
the mint on our palms

— MARGARET SAIGH

Margaret Saigh is a writer, dancer, and educator based in Pittsburgh. She is the author of the chapbook CROSSED IN THE DARKER LIGHT OF TERROR (dancing girl press 2022), a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Pittsburgh, and the creator of circlet, a virtual poetry workshop and reading space. Her poems are forthcoming in giallo lit and A Velvet Giant.