Epilogue

For their first Christmas together,

my father wrote my mother a series of poems in a little blue book.

Their love for God was waning,

but despite this, my father ended the last poem:

Merry Christmas.

I love you.

Amen.

After the cremation,

my mother called to me and said,

Go and dig at the base

of the two white pines

that touch the edge of the river,

that grew slant toward the water,

that from a distance look like one tree but is really two.

So I grabbed the trowel,

knelt on the frozen ground,

and dug my father’s grave.

I have been touched

by the mishap of a random god:

smacked between the eyes,

wetted with the slanting oil,

the channel to all life after

left ajar and bleeding.

Despite it all,

I leaned my forehead

to the bottom of the grave, whispered

my father’s name, then my mother’s,

and finally my own.

Merry Christmas.

I love you.

Amen.

Greer McAllister is the author of a chapbook, Marian Prayers (Bullshit Press, 2023), and is an editor at Love & Squalor Magazine. She has recently been published in HAD, Beaver Magazine, and Pidgeonholes. She tweets @mcallistergreer.