Saturday, April 19, 2025

loren wilkinson | easter eggs


Warmed under wings of unholy ghosts

On Holy Saturday the candy eggs 

Hatch and holler "buy me" 

From their cellophane sacks.

 

And in the night the children sleep

Tucked in plastic beds

With candy ducks in plastic grass

Quacking in their heads.

 

But in the April dawn

They enter the cool light of living rooms

Where color blooms in the corners.

Green beneath the chairs, scarlet in the cushions,

In its shadows the room hides sweetness like a tree.

 

For an instant the children wait surprised,

As women in an unexpected spring might wait

Before trilliums, and the singing birds,

And the emptiness of tombs.