Two poems

Integrated Loss of Attachment

White letters on a beat-up black van:
god entered my body
like a body.
Where is god
in the hollow
the waxy shell of an old man
who isn’t there anymore?
In the room of his dying –
I play some memorized sonata
on an old Casio keyboard
halting, stumbling
over the notes on small keys.
My grandfather brings his soft palms
together in applause.
Years later, my husband’s
grandmother sings
How Sweet to Trust in Jesus
in her crumbling alto.
Her second husband wraps his soft palm
around hers.
Our music twines time.
Our song, exhaust pipe for
soul-fumes
drafting skyward.
god leaves the body –

***

The Curator Plots a Controlled Burn

she slams the back door shut
her heels crush across the fresh lawn
I want
she walks past the shed the garden
to the pile of dried leaves and branches
she squeezes her body into the narrow
space between mud and brush
I want to
it is midafternoon the heat waves
move the prairie grass across the screen
of her vision as she plucks a clover
from the shade nibbles its cool edges
   I want to burn
she scrapes a map into the damp earth
marks the swathes of invasive species
and flammable material build-up
  I want to burn what hurts
she checks the air for humidity and wind
the conditions must be right or
everything will be destroyed

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Sarah Peecher is a poet living and working in Chicago. She holds a Creative Writing MFA degree from Columbia College Chicago, and her recent work appears in Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose, Bluestem, The Lincoln Review, and more. When she's not writing, you can usually find her obsessing over her container garden.