Grief Daybook II by Carol Ann Davis (A Memory Poem for You)

There are panels of sky

as good as forgotten,

Evans' gelatin folds of Florida

circa 1934. The line of sky is dark at first

where the gulf lifts it,

then comes to me like a halo

around the palm tree with its neck bent,

its spray of branches leaning out of frame

as if to flee. Its roots pull

at sand, as if to say,

this is what it takes.

I'd believe, if not for the way

my breath catches,

if not for the wild faint

sleep's become. The palm's branches

are spears left

where they've fallen

in the dirty sand, too heavy

for the tide to take them. Where the neck bends,

cut branches—like stubble on a chin

as seen from below—seem to ask

something of the photographer,

something not washed away

in the chemical bath. The shadow of the trunk

just underlines—means to prove the existence

of the world. It's three o'clock

and the latticework of 1934
is pulling around me in this light

as if to say my god, my god,

a hymn sung by infidels to believers

as a way to ask for water.

Carol Ann Davis