There are days I believe that nothing is sacred,
that we will destroy ourselves as a form of hope
and days when the dead birds in my driveway agree with me.
As a child, I had hoped for something more than this.
But tonight my daughter will let me rock her to sleep.
She too is suspicious of what she will inherit
and wraps her entire hand around my thumb.
I would give anything to take care of you forever.
And I know this too is a lie.
She pays what she can and is sent a photo
each month of a gravestone with fresh lilies.
I can’t tell her the stranger
is sending her the same photo. Six lilies,
one green vase, half-broken fence, and the dead
giveaway, the same yellow tail
of a cat, body just out of frame.
When they bombed the cemetery, the picture
of the lilies continued to show up in her
mailbox and I continued to assure her
that this was money well spent.
They, of course, took everything
but these flowers will last forever.
Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine. She is the author of American Radiance and When the World Stopped Touching.
