Elegy for the Eldest Daughter

Always, Mom’s kitchen window latched shut above the sink.

On the ledge just outside sheltering wisps of snow, my mind

frozen solid or a slow drip. Forever the Christmas pine is

nearly naked from frequent ice storms. In sharp wind

off Lake Michigan limbs lash against the fence line, my heart,

a twisted metal boundary defining the backyard. Cardinal

where we worked ash through calloused hands into topsoil.

Wooden box filled with bone fragments left open, the window,

latched shut beside a garden where we planted blue lilies.

When the moon was full and the sun stayed up past ten, blinking

stars settled in the bark stripped branches before flickering out as fireflies

across a frog pond that was once filled in with fat koi fish: black, white,

bright orange. Your life— a grey heron stealing breakfast before full morning,

now, a graceful felon inflicting loss. Roost of red-crested birds disturbed

along the laundry line, cardinal wings cut across the blinding white.