by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick
Star-bellows on the train blow their horns.
I am happy, one exclaims,
for my mother was a sage-tree and my father, a thorn.
I ask them for a naming, a way to move through pain.
Oh simple, another says,
your body's a shell you'll break out when you're ready,
with your own horn to blow and miles, yes mountains worth
of snow to burrow the forgetting, to graciously love everything
turned to ash and bone