Terry Evans, Sage, Scribner’s Panic Grass, and Other Native Grasses, 1979
Chromogenic print, 48.3 x 48.3 cm
© Terry Evans, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Once, when we moved, my father
dug up the bodies of the three
family dogs we’d buried because
mom said leaving them behind
made her sad. He didn’t tell us until
each small body was transferred and
reburied in the new backyard,
somewhere near the old Blue Spruce.
Mom is all feeling, with little
follow through—she’s told herself
so many little lies, even she
can’t tell what the truth is, after so many
years of tending the soil of her own
life, with turning over and turning
over, with digging down and burying
and all along she’s burned so bright—
incandescent with whatever emotional
bloom: fear, anger, betrayal—love—
I mean, Dad blamed her, but really,
deep down, it’s him who can’t bear
to leave any one of us behind—after all
he was the one who first wrapped
each tender body in their favorite blanket,
tucking the cloth around beloved paws
and nose and belly, he’s the one who knows
the soft give of the black Hefty bags—
the stiff plastic of the tarp—he took
the shovel out, at night, willing
to unbury and bury what needed it.