Jonterri Gadson, American poet, is the author of the chapbooks Interruptions (2014) and Pepper Girl (2012). Her full-length poetry collection, Blues Triumphant (2016), explores the triumphs and demands of motherhood and identity.
CARDINAL SIN
Jonterri Gadson
Jonterri Gadson
I don’t love my son
the way I thought
my mother should love me
so I handed him a shoe box
to put the dead bird in
and shut the door.
It was a mistake,
not to be sure he buried it,
not to grab the children
gathered at my back door
by their shoulders
to push them into a half-circle
and a prayer.
Should have made them
take turns digging the hole,
each one of their pudgy hands
finger stiff red’s box
to lower it to the ground.
It wasn’t my place
to teach other women’s children
about death, so my own son
snuck the shoe box
into his backpack,
dead-eyed bird rolling
like a plastic prize ball,
told the principal
this cold puff
of field bird
had been his pet.
See him
clutching a coffin
the size of his feet,
eyes wide over a pout,
giving a man a reason
good enough to hold him.