Anna Duprey
Block Island, October 2003

On a hilltop tangled with brambles,
among towhees and lingering yellow rumps
mosses and poison ivy
you curled like pipe smoke,
a blinding snow squall
and settled on bayberry leaves
like an early frost.

In spring, welcomed by blackberry
and beach plum you flowered
white and sweet, on this island
where once, you swam with your daughter
she dark and sleek, playful as a seal.
Tossed and tumbled by the sea
her long hair gritty with sand
and bits of shell ground fine
as the bones in your ashes.

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