Poetry By Tracy Corey

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The Only Song She Knew 

Watching my children watch their grandmother die,
I wonder about forgiveness. I want to hold 
this simple grace for just a while longer. 
The moment begs to hold them instead.

No one is talking about the flood. How she saved her children 
and later let them drown in water over 40 years deep. 
Everyone is talking about the flood. 
We have to let her drown. This is forgiveness. 

I lean in closer, study it. There are clues. 
The moment whispers separation plus time 
minus memory. There must be a way 
to get here before getting here. 

I catch a memory of my own mother standing in our kitchen 
the color of the ‘70s and see her wild-eyed, setting a fire in the sink.  
She mostly spoke in whispers. I spoke in silence, 
mostly about girls who speak in leaving. 

At night, my mother called me with her piano. 
I curled up under the bench and she played Für Elise. 
At the end, I touched her ankle and she would
begin again. The only song she knew, and it was for me.

I bought my house because the mesquite tree in front told me 
it was tired and that meant, please stay. My children picked the rooms 
they got to keep this time. Staying rooms instead of leaving rooms. 
I spent years sleeping in the tree.

If language is loyal, the moment says your children will speak in roots 
and resist trees. This is what we do. We whisper. We set fires. We leave.
And when we love someone, I mean really love someone, 
we even let them drown.




​Tracy Corey's work has appeared in the award-winning literary magazine SandScript, where she was the recipient of First Place in Poetry, and La Bloga, the world’s longest-established Chicana Chicano, Latina Latino blog. She studied Creative Writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Arizona. She is a writer and death doula who currently lives between the Sonoran Desert and Central Mexico.
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