ELIZABETH GARCIA

An Hour of PBS
for Rommel

I'm watching Darwin struggle between awe of rotten bird,
the fecund seeds hidden in the gut-and doubt,
the barnacle lodged in his back.

His wife pushes him through darkness
toward immortality, secret of life, corona
to light up all her children in one room.

But it cannot eclipse those half graves.
Each time, he buckles, and I wonder
what heat and pressure the plates

of the face require, why my father
never wept when he buried children,
one by the wall of the house in a shoebox.

He blared the TV upstairs, let the rest of us
place flowers on the grave. Let my mother
heave alone, her body emptied.

I'd like to hear what sounds he tried to drown.
Wonder if I climbed those stairs, if I'd find Darwin
weeping there. Something worth the dark.






Elizabeth Garcia's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Lake Review, Segullah Literary Journal, Borderline, Eudaimonia Poetry Review, Irreantum, and Poets and Artists, as well as in a recent anthology, Fire in the Pasture: 21st Century Mormon Poets. She was awarded the Segullah Poetry Prize in 2007 and nominated by Irreantum for a Pushcart Prize in 2010. She serves as an Associate Editor for FutureCycle Press, the Editor-elect of the Georgia Poetry Society anthology, The Reach of Song, and assists the poetry board for the Segullah Literary Journal. In a past life, she taught English Literature and Composition full time at the college level for seven years. Now she devotes her time to raising a family and working on her first poetry collection.



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761