National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Not With Flowers by Deepthi Gopal

The honeysuckle that you did not love

will twine its tourniquet around your grave, engrave

its own story in the space where yours belongs, seep

through every crack and crevice till even the stone

forgets your name; the hummingbirds will visit

but they will not care for you. I write this to you

because when I'm done I will be carried out to sea,

poured into the river’s mouth in a torrent of benedictions,

and you, buried weed-choked, will never hold me.

I write this to you in defence of the green growing things.

I write this to you to fill the spaces you left in your wake

where the honeysuckle once grew.