Elisabeth von Uhl

The Lilacs Outside My Son’s Elementary School

God has been replaced by my seven-year-old son: 
this play on words is blinding and sticky 

and mute.  As my son grows, I am further away— 
his days as a newborn are now just black sutures 

along a red-lined wound before closing my fists 
around lilac stems breaking through dirt outside his elementary school.

With rage, I rip those lilacs; they are too stunning, 
too alive, too persistent, and their perfume 

that swallows summer evenings (touch that smooth, 
glossy mouth of July) slips through memory,

leaving roots of grief filling fleshy space.  Now, my ache 
is sharp: the smell of lilacs is heady, violent, and wide:

and what little I have, I want it to be beautiful.

Elisabeth von Uhl has earned a 2021 “Bronx Recognizes Its Own” Award and has had a poem nominated for “Best of the Net”. She has earned scholarships to the Prague Summer Writer’s Conference, Greenwich Village Writer’s Workshop, and Vermont College’s Postgraduate Writer’s Conference. Her work has been published in Lunch Ticket, The Cortland Review, SHIFT, cream city review, and other journals and anthologies.