summing my nephew, his doctor
avoids the anodyne, the passive voice

which organs now are compromised,
merely says he’s actively dying

my brother and i’ve watched wives
slide this way, my daughter too

it’s taken years in the scrub lands
to learn nothing is a weed

mullein thrives in broken soil
its leaves laying down a richness

where others flourish in its stead
before sparseness takes a turn

a fistful of blossoms each for a day
a hundred thousand seeds

sealing themselves for decades
until fire sweeps the fields

our nights fill with flowers,
our days so busy dying

# # #

George Perreault’s most recent book, Bodark County, is a collection of poems in the voices of characters living on the Llano Estacado in West Texas.

Photo: Chloe Ridgway