Signs for the Living

Sometimes, after the last snow in May,

after the red-winged blackbird clutches the spine

of the cattail, after he leans forward, droops

his wings, and flashes his epaulets, I imagine

shouldering the yellow center lines of the road.

Near the recently thawed pond, within a long

channel of construction, a man holding a sign.

One side says slow, the other stop.

Joy and sorrow always run like parallel lines.

Inside the house, when I leave the lights on,

small white moths come like a collection of worship,

pulsing their wings up and up the window,

as if a frenzied trancelike dance,

some dervishes, the others penitent on shaky knees.

The first few years after my husband’s suicide

I wanted to the penitent.

I thought I deserved all the pain I could feel.

The drill of roadwork in late summer

was a welcome grinding music.

Now the yellow center lines are flung like braids behind me.

by Didi Jackson

(as seen in The New Yorker, October 2, 2017 )