Cosmos in December
by Kassidy Jones
You are eight or seven years old, depending on
when you died but never left me, invisible
deep within my muscles, buried inside my bones.
A cosmos first grown in the fall, felled in the snow
in the growing uterus that I did not know
was growing, and expanding, and making room for
death to visit, hood drawn, scythe catching and cracking
sinew as it harvested petals, thinning down.
Bloody and vomit soaked in the hospital room,
mistaken kidney stones, gritted teeth, moans, and spit
and pleas from my lips, I rock back and forth, back and
forth, chair to bathroom, continuously wiping
and wiping and wiping your blood from between my
legs so as to not alter reality more.
Still you left as I leaned forward, I heard the splash
beneath my body, a vice grip squeeze inside of
me and your anger left, like brush fire spreading
within, traveling decaying and rotting roots.
They ask and they ask and they ask, shameful speeches
and whispers, follow our torn bodies from machine
to machine, to wheelchair locked and scuffing up the
ashen as bone linoleum floors, leaving a
black trail for death to follow, to find, to scrape out
every list bit of you from inside me, I feel
the blade again and again but really it is good,
they tell me, a clean break, a fallow, how can you
miss what you never had, and really how could you
miss what you should have known, and how can they miss what
they should still see, you are screaming and raking down
somewhere in my back, bending my spine, so I hunch
forward to make room for you. Head bent, my sweat drops
acid into my skin for you, please leave me, or
stay and stay and stay with me, like shadows in
silence, to feel every month, once again dug up.
You and death reconnect to collect the missing
pieces, catch up, old friends, together in peace, though
not resting, never resting, your face behind my
eyelids, always changing, but uncultivated,
forever, stuck in perpetual bloom, make sure
the rhizomes crumble to dust, never taking hold.
Kassidy Jones is a writer whose work focuses on surrealistic vignettes that blend memories with nature. Her work won third place for Ohio State University’s Gertrude Lucille Robinson Award in 2019. She currently resides in Ohio with her family.