POETRY

By Jessica Goodfellow

To write about suf­fer­ing you need a dictionary.

You don’t have one, but you have the inter­net which is, maybe, better for suffering.

Acci­den­tal­ly, you look up suf­frutes­cent instead.

You read: par­tial­ly or slight­ly woody; subshrubby.

Sub­shrub­by; you are delight­ed. You even use a semi-colon.

So many dic­tio­nar­ies! So many shrubs. Prickly pear. Swamp doghob­ble. Crybabytree.

You read: having a base that is some­what woody and does not die down each year. 

Stag­ger­bush. Choke­ber­ry. Ah, you are getting closer!

You read: having a woody base that per­sists but branch­es that die after flowering.

You’ve done it; you’ve found suf­fer­ing. Some­thing per­sists. Some­thing else dies.

You under­stand that each some­thing must be spe­cif­ic, or it isn’t suffering.

This strick­en joint, that last lost job, this house col­lapsed on that woman’s child.

Time’s passing has a some­thing to do with it too. Mock orange. Rue. Blue false indigo.

The petal limp, slumped. The woody base, thick­en­ing, rooted, unable to move.

Photo by Joshua Hoehne