Donna H. DiCello

Understory

Donna H. DiCello

Issue 58, Autumn 2019

The heart of another is a dark forest.

--Willa Cather

Secrets like fiddleheads

unfurled the year I turned eight--

cousin no longer, now sister,

twinning in the eyes,

broad strokes of olive skin--

testament to my father’s

first marriage, another life.

This knowing both shame

and delight, my mother

was not the first, nor I.

My father’s crinkled laugh

around her mouth, her nose,

evidence of their undone history

secret and dank,

like the forest floor,

green shoots pushing towards

sunlight, the strain of trees

in the wind, holding their roots.

Her children grew, as did

our father’s silence;

moss grown thick to hide

the turns of earth, years

becoming markers of what

could not be said.

Dreams conveyed

our primordial connection,

trees whispering

in lost tongues, the language

of longing where roots entwine,

shifting the landscape.

I tried to read the map

of hearts; one, I loved most,

the other, adrift, a milkweed,

pulsing on a waft of breeze

and dappled light, each one of us

trying to nestle

into a cradle of pine.