Baklava

Like so many layers of phyllo dough
my grief compounds itself
each time
my life touches death.

My grandfather's passing crushed me at five,
then a friend at thirteen took the joy out of life.
My mother, too young, muffled the world's buzz,
cocooning me in strife.

Each death weighs on me like
stones on a grave.

Each wave of grief
crushes me.

Daring me to be brave.

I want life how it used to be.
I want to be saved.
I'm exercising futility-
I know there's no escape.

Growth

I remember a white dress with red satin trim
dirt caked under my fingernails, between my toes.
I was three, and you were explaining
to me why I couldn't plant an apple tree
in Florida.  I couldn't understand how a place
good for growing so many other trees
couldn't grow apples.  I dropped the core,
seeds and all, into the earth, in defiance of you,
and of nature.  I dropped it in a cold corner
near the front of the house, and sat above that spot
all summer, sucking ixora nectar
as I waited.
No apples grew out of the earth
that fall, but that core took me into the ground,
showing me the secret to growing things unseen.