“Poem”
The only response
to a child’s grave is
to lie down before it and play dead
“After the Burial”
After the burial I alone stood by till 2 workmen came to shovel the dirt back into the hole. There was some left over, the dirt she’d displaced, and they wheeled it off. Drawn, not knowing why, I followed at a distance. Coming to a small backlot, they dumped it, then left. I walked over. It made a small mound. And all around her, similar mounds. Pure cones of joy! First gifts from the dead! I fell to my knees before it, and fell forward on my hands into it… to the elbows, like washwater… For the first time, I became empty enough to cry for her.
“Death”
Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.
They will place my hands like this.
______________________________
From The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans. Copyright © 2024 by the Estate of Bill Knott. Reprinted by permission of Black Ocean.
Bill Knott
Bill Knott was born in Carson City, Michigan, in 1940 and died in Bay City, Michigan, in 2014. In the years between, Knott traveled the country—eventually settling in Boston—and proceeded to publish eleven full-length books of poems and was awarded both the Iowa Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship.
