Digging this hole for my mother’s last beagle between pear trees
in my grandpa’s yard, the earth resists the blade. And my body
pays in blisters for severed roots and
disrupted stones. This makes me think of the way you loved,
how it came from things like dirt & burning hands, how you
learned to give the earth everything you thought
sacred: your father’s twin brows deepening into canyons,
your mother’s early morning work. You could’ve outlived
us all and still died believing grandmothers are dry mountains.
You, my sister of dirty fingernails, would understand why
I didn’t let the home-vet take the body, you would understand this
white boy digging between pear trees and finding the work of love.
Erik Wilbur 