Tomb Sweeping Day

By Ana Pugatch

You show me your ribs, how they’re stitched,
the lightning scar swollen and red. From your knapsack
I help to retrieve your liver, unwrap the thing
from its cloth. You wince as we stumble further up
the ridge, place it on the sill of the watchtower window so
it overlooks the hills, scintillating like a dark sun.
The Great Wall crumbles beneath our feet, stones sharp
like fragments of bone. Jiankou is a section that’s too steep—
it’s illegal to climb. The encroaching shrubbery
has smoldered since fall, redolent of wartime fires.
The weather is mild; your eyes are blue glass, like mine.
When we look back, we can make out the crocuses
blooming from your liver, untainted in the cool April
air, their centers flickering brightly. From their chosen
outpost they’ll burn well into the night.

Ana Pugatch is the recipient of the '20-'21 Poetry Heritage Fellowship at George Mason University. She is a Harvard graduate who lived in Asia for several years, teaching English and studying Buddhism. Her work has recently been featured in The Los Angeles Review, and she won the NC Poetry Society's '21 McIntyre Light Verse Award. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.