Such a tiny little box to carry a soul

Two poems by Mark DiFruscio

Author

Publish Date

April 19, 2017

Mark DiFruscio is a San Diego–based writer and filmmaker.

Remains

Such a tiny little box
to carry a soul
Faux wood
with a walnut coat
What does it hold?
One foot wide
and six inches deep,
large enough for a person
170 pounds before
cremation.
A hand-carved Tree of Life,
In Loving Memory of inscribed —
unscrew, slide out to insert
plastic bag of human ash,
sculpt a hole
in the February frozen soil
to let go
of all the inflections you gave my name —
want, envy, shame, bully-rage —
I hold on
to a backwards glance
at the nightly bedtime game we played
how you tested me in the dark of the room
we shared, pointed to the logo
of every team
on our matching NFL sheets
until I could name them each
for you.

Birthday

I lost you two weeks before my birthday
before we ever met, my springtime child
second chance, to salvage a splinter
of the possible self
I had hoped to become
when I still believed that the world
was somehow shaped
by how we try to live, and to care
for those we love —
a father who paints twilight sailboats
for his lost favorite son,
a mother grown mawkish, twisted bitter
by so many of her life’s letdowns —
and nothing restores the empty womb,
barrenness transgresses winter months
drains the green from the leaves, from the trees, from the soil
and the cry of a wound
defies any formula
of words.

Mark DiFruscio is a San Diego–based writer and filmmaker. He earned his MFA in film production from the University of Southern California, where he produced the documentary Dog People. His writing has appeared in Fiction International and pacific REVIEW.