Confessional

This is what happened: I found
the wren frozen stuck to the ground

and I kept on moving. The onion
snow came too late this year;

the hard freeze took out the plums.
Some farmer kept the coal-

barrels burning through the night.
Another lit half his land

on fire to save the grapes. Some
theologians think [ ] gave us grapes –

but not wine – so we, too, could find
joy in creation. See: we make bread

to be torn apart, hot. Hot, and full
of yanked-up wheatsheaf. We

love the dog even though we know,
we know — be it love or oats,

we know it when we plant it —
most things don’t make it out alive.

This is just to say: I’m not a
theologian, or a farmer, or even

the woman who scooped up the wren’s
body, tucked it in a plastic bag,

and kept it in her freezer between
the berries and winter greens,

waiting patiently for the final thaw
to bury it in soft earth. I’m just

a girl with an emergent deer in her
cupped palms; a girl saying: look! This is

what I have created with my grief.
This is what love has made out of me.

Header photograph © Shalini Chaudhary.