To the Working Class God I Have Lost

To my grandmothers
you were the cherry tree,

the clear spring water
they wrung from clothes,

you were woodsmoke,
yellow tobacco

and henfeathers,
beds made, a hymn sung.

Your aroma in their prayers
smelled like onions,

camphor and sweat;
they heard your replies

in flapping leaves,
a honeybee,

the radio’s soliloquy.
You were the love

in their husbands’ hands
and mouths.

You were grief to them also,
a stillborn child

with an unused name,
yet they clung to you

like a cotton dress
wet from rain.

Liquids marked your trail
across my grandmothers’ days:

blackberry juice
coloring young hands,

buttermilk gone sour,
the bright blood of labor.

You stung like papercuts,
axeblade wounds,

ant bites, infidelity.
You soothed like ice

cools a burn.
You, the life of corn

sprouting from red clay,
birthed and killed in season.