Sarah Anne Stinnett

A week after his memorial

the flowers are dead.
When I wash my hands,
the soap froths, as if 

from two mouths, bubbles
blink like eyes, then
pop as I grip the vase. 

Lily petals, brown
as sapless soil,
spot the countertop,           

sage stems fill the basin.
I wedge my fingers
down the vase’s throat 

and scrape a sticky cloud
from its belly, a galaxy
of guts pinched between 

my wilted fingertips—
everything is ruined
from having been alive.

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Sarah Anne Stinnett teaches at Berklee Online and holds an MFA in Poetry from Lesley University and an ALM in Dramatic Arts from Harvard University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Plume and Red Letter and is incised in cement as a winner of the 2020 Cambridge Sidewalk Poetry Contest.