i.m. Ann Hogan, Honora Costello, Mary Quirk
These women, they lie here
deep in earth’s quiet bed,
now no more than teeth,
shaped as if gibbous moon,
and bones – radius and ulna
crossed in humble reverence to God –
hands, once said to be ever extended
in friendship, now a tangle of finished deeds.
Their shrouds, Sunday best: webs of thread and dust.
My sister and I stand at their graves, behold the story
of our bodies’ reckoning; for through them,
in them, in their lustrous days we grew.
We are their daughters, many daughters later.
See how daughter is almost laughter, like
the bubbling up of love from the gut to the gullet.
