This set of three poems was prompted by the untimely death of a young mother. May she rest in peace and may her family know the consolation of a loving (the living) God.

1. SHE IS SCHOOLED IN THE HARDER MYSTERIES-

in the grammar of disappointment

and math of endless days.

2. WHAT IS SPENT

to prevent

the one final flare-out?

3. SUICIDE FLOWERS

Wouldn’t they make you sick,

your mother gone

and these instead,

pert with the pollen of dropsy?