After My Brother Died in An Explosion

Our mother took up smoking. She would sit
by a window cracked by the blast that killed
him, legs crossed at the ankles, her auburn hair

flowing down her back like a swollen creek.
Smoke rose from her lips and swirled around

the room like her son’s spirit leaving his body
to the sound of sirens, the hiss of busted pipes.
Days went by when she barely spoke to anyone,

kept to her bedroom when people came to call,
was comforted by nothing. And all the while, she
smoked and smoked, her grief raw as a wound,

constantly weeping. It seemed as though her
will to live disappeared like a child rounding
a busy street corner, his mother frantic to catch

him before he dashed into the street. And then,
at what cost we cannot know, she returned to us.

It was like she never left—the only proof of her
pain the sorrow peering through her eyes like a
prisoner, crumpled packs of smokes in the trash.

*

Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry, including her latest collection, Night Talks: New & Selected Poems (Press 53), which was a finalist for (general) poetry in the International Book Awards and the Best Book Awards. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including “American Life in Poetry,” Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, JAMA, Poetry Foundation, Rattle, The SUN, The Writer’s Almanac, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse Daily, and many more. Among her numerous awards are the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, Nautilus Silver Book Award, Tennessee Williams Poetry Prize, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize. She lives in North Carolina.