Author’s Note: I find it a terrifying thrill that as a parent I am responsible not just for a child but a childhood, and whether or not she remembers these days with love or venom, the days proceed. Even my best self with my best intentions make mistakes. And yet, there is so much sweetness, whenever I follow her lead and look.
Traumas
My daughter learned from a goat
that there is sweet sap to be sucked
from honey locust pods in early autumn.
She takes the fibrous capsules to her mouth
with ecstasy—mmm, she sighs—inciting horror
in mothers who watch from the swing set.
My wife fears the traumas we bequeath.
Traumas like mountain ranges submerged
under flat lakes: some will surface
as islands of visible grief, but most will lurk
and stub a paddling toe or wreck a canoe
out for a pleasant float. My wife says
she pushed her away from her body,
says she was done being consumed
before our daughter was done consuming,
reads that crying to sleep etches abandonment
into the brain. Graduated extinction, they call it,
as if an absence can be tempered, as if the child
knows the night as anything but complete.
The pericarpal flesh, if you’re unfamiliar,
is a viscous goo sinewed with woody threads:
delicious, my daughter states, spitting
marble-black seeds into the playground mulch,
reaching to pluck another from the branches.
♦
Andrew Payton is a writer, learning designer, teacher, and climate advocate living in Harrisonburg, Virginia with his partner and children. His writing has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, among others, and he won the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review. Born and raised in Maryland, he is a 2014 graduate of the MFA program in creative writing and environment at Iowa State University. Website: andrewdpayton.wordpress.com
The Delmarva Review, published in St. Michaels, MD, selects the most compelling new poetry. fiction, and nonfiction from thousands of submissions nationwide (and beyond) for publication in print, with an electronic version. It is produced at a time when many commercial publications (and literary magazines) have closed their doors or are reducing literary content in print. The review is available worldwide from Amazon.com, other major online booksellers, and specialty regional bookstores. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
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