The Small Door of Your Death

Sheryl St. Germain

• Publisher: Autumn House Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781938769276
• eBook ISBN: 9781938769849
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

This honest and haunting collection of poems follows the loss of the poet's only son to heroin addiction. St. Germain takes us through the stages of her grief and offers no false promises or simple answers. These narrative-driven poems are a compelling and compassionate look into addiction and the effect it has on a family.

1.

Loving an Addict

yesterday the skies were troubled

gusts almost knocked us down

today sun, the kiss of a breeze

it was always fights or lies

maybe at the end

I preferred the lies

Son Poem

he’ll have thin and careless hair,

strong and directionless, indifferent

to brushes, a wisp of tail

that suckles his back like a vine

some nights you’ll look at him

and see your death

and once or twice, in the second

that you blink

you’ll see yourself, grinning

and beckoning with unwashed hands

Louisiana Oranges

Huge as softballs, sweet as honey,

the rind so intensely orange that

the smell lingers on your hands long after eating it.

My grandmother married under an orange tree.

She wore a tiara of orange blossoms in her hair.

This one cost fifty cents in the French market,

and before I leave I’ll draw in all its sweetness,

let it run down my mouth.

The market is full of color and breath,

the sun, a great orange lighting the sky,

and I’ve not had a drink for three months.

The Good Mother

My son’s small, maybe six, has just bathed and brushed his teeth. Toys scattered on the floor, a box of LEGOs here, some half-built castles there, Ninja Turtles stacked like a pile of corpses in the corner, pants peeled off and left in the middle of the room, stuffed animals heaped on his bed.

He’s under the covers, hair still damp, cheeks shining. He smells like any child just out of a bath, fragile and wild, pure as the finest milled soap. I grab a book, tuck him in, and start to read.

I’m sober, done with drugs. All that’s alive and good is in this room: my voice, his eyes, large and trusting, waiting for the story.

Suit of Swords

This, the family into which we were born,

all edges and blades, a seeing so sharp

some of us are driven to blunt

all the ways we hurt.

My son, the little sword, is trying to sleep,

but he’s tossing and turning, cutting himself

and me when I try to help.

Another difficult day. Nothing

is as either of us had hoped.

Missing homework, notes about

disobedience written in angry

scrawls. He doesn’t pay attention,

doesn’t play well with others.

The principal has taken

to paddling him. Teachers and shrinks

peddle pills to settle us both.

Every day I wake up, he says,

and promise myself I’ll be good.

I really want to but—something always happens.

He falls into a fit of sobs, choking.

I stroke him to sleep, singing some song

about summertime. I know only too well

that will is not enough for change,

but I’m a sword too,

and have little else to offer.

Christmas, 2013

He’s no longer a boy, but a young man

with eyes that ask to be left alone.

I’m driving him to his apartment

after two days of cooking, movies, holiday cheer.

I don’t know, Mom, he says suddenly,

through tears, what will become of me.

I freeze and thaw, unsure of what to do—

always that dance of how much touching

he wants, how much I can stand to give.

Three of Swords

All bad news creeps through phones, voices cracking and flat

over the years and miles: it burned down, son says of the garage,

he’s dead, mother says of brother, dead, sister says of nephew,

house flooded, other sister says,

dead, mother says of aunt, dead brother,

dead father, drunk, heart attack, overdose,

totaled your car,

I’m leaving, says the son.

The Rhetoric of Wrecks

Wrecks sing softer in winter—

swells of snow on roadsides

cradle cars that lost their fight with ice.

Snow muffles the crash, the shouts,

the wrestling with doors and belts, the retching. Even blood

and breath disappear in blizzards.

We slide and pirouette on black ice,

wrapping cars around other cars,

circling to face the end head on. The last

sound we hear is percussion, requiem,

the sacred music of metal against metal.

If we’ve had enough to drink,

we may be lucky not to hear the song

of our own dying:

oh silent night, oh holy night.

Nine of Swords

every nightmare a dream

of someone we love

A Perfect Game

—after Robert Hayden

Sundays too, I tell my son, your grandfather drank—

at the bowling alley between strikes and spares and claps on the back.

I loved to watch him make the approach for his shot:

how serious, how attentive...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• 1.
• 2.
• 3.
• 4.
• 5.
• Notes and Acknowledgments
• About the Author