Hannah Yerington
Dirt Demon

Dirt Demon

*
In the Garden of Death,
angels strap shovels to their wings,
they dig holes for graves
or the arrival of infants.

**
I was born in the Garden of Death,
spat up from the dirt,
pushed out between roots and rocks, my mother screaming
in subterranean pain, the earth gaping at my arrival.

***

From dirt we came, to dirt we will return.

****

When the dirt grew into my skin,
I expected the mud,
my mother always told me that we couldn’t stay this clean.
I watched my mother’s lips
turn to loam, her skin to soil.
There is no mother in earth.

*****

I watch my trees for decades,
jealous of the way they grow,
their branches steady
snow falling off of them
at the slightest of heat, after every wildfire,
new tendrils, saplings suckling.

******

I mothered my trees with muck,
with manure, with the grime of my groins
knowing that one day, I would struggle
back into their roots.

*******

When the dirt came,
She came with hands, with mouth
she sucked my skin to mud
slid her soiled fingers inside.

********

There is no hole,
where she took me, the earth is warm,
wet to the touch, roots reach to water
I left behind.

*********

Have you ever screamed into the earth?

**********

I don’t think the trees listened,
the ones I loved,
had no ears to hear me leave.