February 2024
Author's Note: I live and write poetry in Cincinnati, OH. January is the seventh anniversary of the month we buried my father and, three weeks later, my nephew. My father's death was a long, labored process; my nephew died suddenly in a violent car crash. These poems are for them—and for all who have lost loved ones, expected or sudden.
Loss Palindrome
The last time I looked into your eyes they were pools, unspilled, deep on a late December night. Soft yellow light threw the living room into shadows, lit the deathbed. Our beloved father. None of us knew you would soon follow him as the great stag passed into the dark. The sweep of loss As the great stag passed into the dark you would soon follow him. None of us knew. Our beloved father lit the deathbed, threw the living room into shadows, soft yellow light deep on a late December night. They were pools, unspilled, the last time I looked into your eyes.
Originally published in Anti-Heroin Chic, December 2019
Mountain Song (for My Nephew)
What matter if I live it all once more? -W.B. Yeats Four years now. The canvas a pasture with this grazing horse before he breaks into a gallop, mane flying, some wings, such joy to be pounding the earth with hooves. It’s not fair, you being gone. You shouldn’t be the body absent the stream. I wake every day and think my small thoughts about what I need to weed from the garden, to dust in the house, the poem I must write to fix you on the page. It’s not minor I’ve forgotten your eyes. Were they hazel or blue? The minor key sounds like loss, your tattoos no longer sharp, the notes floating on this bar of abstraction in feathered wisps. The song coils the ridge, and you, the peak profiled against the sky.
Originally published in Lily Poetry Review, Issue 8, Summer 2022
Three Foxes Appear in as Many Moons
The first, one month after my father died. Stilled at the crest of the cemetery hill, auburn shine, plumed tail: open your eyes to the messengers, as they surely arrive. This fox like a vanishing dream: a thrill, the first, one month after my father died. Near the graves where my father and nephew lie, another fox darted past, gave me a chill— auburn shine, plumed tail: open your eyes. Our family lost both within weeks, I cried, why had I not spotted a red fox until the first, one month after my father died? As I rounded a curve near my home one night, the silhouette in my headlights’ spill— auburn shine, plumed tail: open your eyes. Three red foxes. I search for your reprise, the notes of your song play in me still. The first, one month after my father died— auburn shine, plumed tail: open your eyes.
Originally published in pacificREVIEW’s 2022 edition: ATLANTIS and other lost places.
©2024 Ellen Austin-Li
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