Annette Sisson

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.

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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

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