Deep in Milkweed
My grandfather shuffled
his family to a few
sloping acres he’d wrangled
in the country, a crudely
framed shack—shallow
footings, foundation,
studs, flimsy roof.
No insulation
or running water, a single
woodstove, old
sheets for bedroom walls.
He’d thought to finish
the house by fall, collapsed
into pneumonia, lost
his job. Winter crept in.
His sons lined
the tarpaper shell with newsprint.
They slept in mittens,
coats over sweaters, three
to a mattress. Between
coughs, he swore he’d plumb
the place, put up
drywall when spring swept away
the ice. In the warm
seasons, he prayed each
day for easy
breath, died before the parched
leaves dropped.
His children, angular and thin,
rambled the hill
deep in milkweed. Sharp
pods scraped
their skin as they scanned for monarchs.
Tufts of floss
released, ribboned the empty
heat, the sky.
Annette Sisson has poems in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Rust and Moth, Cloudbank, Lascaux Review, Blue Mountain Review, Cider Press Review, Tupelo’s Milkweed Anthology, and others. Her second book, Winter Sharp with Apples, is forthcoming from Terrapin Books in October 2024; her first book was published by Glass Lyre in May 2022. Her poem “Fog” won The Porch Writers’ Collective’s 2019 poetry prize; her work has also placed in Frontier New Voices, The Fish Anthology, Lascaux Review’s poetry prize, and many other contests. She has received multiple nominations for The Pushcart Prize or Best of the Net. https://annettesisson.com