A Stroke / Of Dirt
by Jasmine Reid
when dad passed
a butterfly clapped
its wings & that鈥檚
the sound dearest
to silence a soul nearness
leaving prepared me nest
of nothing i am next
to nothing
mom said, at his funeral
i cried & asked, 鈥渨here鈥檚 dad? where鈥檚 dad?鈥�
i remember nothing of those months
only, after, the fleshy feeling of a hole in me
when thinking of him, an ache stemmed
my chin to chest, i fell into myself
thought i must be something
wrong to be so alone
i dug backyard, aged into the soil
horizon by horizon, expecting parent rock. i
pulled out a whole girl.
a hole & then, myself.
& so it was, my mother said,
鈥渋f your father were still alive
he would have a fit. you know that,
don鈥檛 you? he would have a fit.鈥�
spared him, i am she who stalks
tall as grass beneath the branch-working
swallow. i was born out of tongue
& only the dirt would have me.
i am a loam. i am alone. i am the lunacy
of living furled below loess, sediment, error.
anti-sentiment, here is wind. live. have your fit.
blood clot. kill me.
near-dead,
i am daughter blip鈥檇
yellow elsewhere bleep鈥檇
a facety face鈥檇
hole-hearted
deciduous blank
This poem emerged nearly whole in a morning of mourning, a geological reckoning with my father's death, the hole it left and my emergence therethrough as 鈥渁 whole girl.鈥� Here, I am considering origin in absence, or growing from 鈥渁 nest / of nothing.鈥� Formally, I am rendering the 鈥渟troke鈥� as both the thrombotic (blood clotting) and the striking, the stanzas forming these punchy clots in the white space nothing, building to a kind of ululation, the stroke and its grieving.
On a different but related note, this poem was one of the first to hold the voice of my youngest self, and in that, it required great risk to write and share. I hope you will hold her and your own little one with care.
is a twice trans poet of flowers. She is the author of Deus Ex Nigrum, an MFA graduate from Cornell University, and recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and Poets House. Her work has been published or is聽 forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets鈥� Poem-a-Day, Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, and TriQuarterly, among others.