Mary Szybist Poems

It is so and so and not the dusty world
who drops.

It is their mother and not the dusty world
...

I had the happy idea to suspend some blue globes in the air

and watch them pop.
...

Mary who mattered to me, gone or asleep
among fruits, spilled

in ash, in dust, I did not
...

The job was easy: I tucked
them in, kicked off my shoes, listened for
the floor to go quiet. Everyone
...

I could hear them from the kitchen, speaking as if
something important had happened.
...

Just for this evening, let's not mock them.
Not their curtsies or cross-garters
or ever-recurring pepper trees in their gardens
promising, promising.
...

—how her loose curls float
above each silver fish as she leans in
to pluck its eyes—
...

Stone soldier, it's okay now.
I've removed my rings, my watch, my bracelets.

I'm allowed, brave girl,
...