Season of Ghosts

For me, spring is a season of ghosts. My brother Andrew’s birthday is April 10th. He died of cancer at age 38. My sister Angelica’s birthday is May 9th. She died of cancer at age 54. My brother Brian’s birthday is June 7th. He died of cancer at age 55. I suppose I should go back and begin the list with my mother, who was born on March 22nd, but she died of heart failure at age 85, and although I miss her, the pain of my siblings’ deaths is more mysterious and pervasive, coloring every moment of my own life. I explored this endurance of grief in a poem I wrote two years ago, called “Snow and Oranges.” It was published in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Frost Meadow Review.
 
Snow and Oranges
                        by Laura Bonazzoli
 We go on.
We talk of weather
and the price of oranges
the shops closing for winter
the long nights of December.
We go to work
to a concert. On the road
home we stop and watch
the moonlight climb
the snow.
 
We remember
or can’t forget
that we are tasting oranges
you must have tasted once
or walking a crystal-jeweled hill
you must once have walked. Either
way we go on
for moments
for decades chasing
you chasing
 
you.
The moon on snow tonight
for instance
is not bright enough
to keep you from our eyes
nor the scent of these oranges
sweet enough
to carry
the earth of you
away.
 

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