On Decomposition
I once believed in decomposition
as infinity, deification of mushroom
and ant, fallen log peeled back from bark
to heartwood⎯each cell recycled into new
matter. That’s how I picture her body
now: devotedly tended by worms, singular
in their vocation, resurrecting cell
by cell her still body. It was my own
brush with mortality⎯a fist-sized tumor
in the head⎯that brought me to
belief in the eternal. In cacophony of MRI,
plea turned prayer, threaded together what
was frayed in me, connected the hidden
parts like mycelium networks laced underground.
It goes without saying, dirt makes way
for flower, which I lay at her grave.
Cell by cell, she sublimates, becomes
vapor. Beyond the stretch of my mind,
its limits of clouds and weather
systems overhead, she waits, immaterial.
The Resurrection
Hail, holy Queen Mother
of Mercy
Unspool the flesh from these ribs
cracked and splintered
bleed me into the red earth
To Thee do we cry poor
banished children
My brother’s left eye consecrated
left ventricle grafted
into a stranger’s chest
To Thee do we send up
our sighs
We cannot bury our dead their
flesh breathes bereaved I watched
my father weep through loose topsoil
Mourning and weeping in this
valley of tears
Was it then mothered communion
that melted on my tongue
The first glorious mystery:
And after this our exile
show unto us
Peel open shoulder blades from
around the hearts of mothers
who hold anguished
The blessed fruit of thy womb
Unshroud the sun this morning
Laura Mulqueen
Laura is a poet and mother living in Huntsville, Alabama. She received a master’s in English from Auburn University and her work has been featured in Wilderness House Literary Review and In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers, among others. She is currently pursuing a career in nursing.
Header image by Lutz Stallknecht
