Kathryn Knight Sonntag
To Name What is Lost

 
I cannot say the sorrow so pummel 
the wet earth with spade disturbing silent 
moths pulling up a mess of rot cleaving 

peony tubers the sweet of leaves ascending 
as October’s smoke and shadow deep 
in haze I’m unsure if gold in everything means 

relief or desolation always forgetting what was
just said what my body felt like before it was cloven 
into two sons multiplying and dividing my heart 

says it cannot serve itself a moth flickering 
dumb in the light or is it a moth
flickering in the dumb light I cannot say

so I thrust the spade and the familiar grief
arpeggio passes down my fingers as buds 
white-tipped-pink ooze amber at the edges

of empty eaten before the fullness of bloom this
too is a natural ending to a life pollen-trapped 
as my words in muck as twilight settles 

into periwinkle promising light I can’t shake
the aftertaste of the sacred known as vague 
haze as miniscule deaths annihilating 

multitudes—is this really all there is torn 
pieces of light not knowing this particular edge 
of earth and sky how can I begin to name 

what is lost moment-on-moment moths
beating wildly under my hands
at nothing—to stay alive