Kelly DuMar
Grief By Any Other Name Would Smell Like Love
I washed the sweater that I took from your closet
on the afternoon of your funeral
and it has shrunk and I keep losing
all the answers to everything
and even behind my mask everyone can see
my empty wounded deer my neck ending in grief
sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh says Ophelia.
At the cemetery I want to kneel inside the flowers
beside your tombstone wearing the cloths of all your smells
of Oleg Cassini perfume, of Vicks VapoRub,
of all the micro musty cells of the body coming apart
the essence of dying pulling open all the drawers
drawing me closer folding into worlds of ecstacy
the earth splitting open to you.
Stephanie K. Merrill is a retired high school English teacher now living the writer’s life which involves reading, walking, ferns and mosses, cats, tea, and a little writing. She lives under the dark night sky in the arroyos on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Her most recent publications include poems in The Rise Up Review, Blue Heron Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, and Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art (Issues Two and Four). She has work forthcoming in the June 2021 issue of UCity Review. Stephanie K. Merrill is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of three poetry chapbooks, girl in tree bark (Nixes Mate, 2019), Tree of the Apple, (Two of Cups Press), and All These Cures, (Lit House Press). Her poems, prose and photos are published in many literary journals including Bellevue Literary Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Crab Fat, Storm Cellar, Corium & Tiferet, and frequently in Feral. Kelly serves on the Board of the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG), and produces the Bi-Monthly Open Mic Writer Series attended by women worldwide. She blogs her daily nature photos & creative writing at kellydumar.com/blog.