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What, exactly, makes an object or place
sacred? Because when I hear
that word, I picture a person—my father, alive,
inhaling a lake-side starscape after ousting our
fire, or slouched, smug, in his junky Civic, grinning his smart-
assed grin, as if aware
he’s someplace he’s forbidden. In memory’s elevator, he wears
his sacredness like cologne—a pullied place
scaling past to present, where I can’t outsmart
my sentimentality. Here,
doors open to camping trips, races I won—our
superlative moments. I’ve
entered a grief that sees the world alive
with my father’s loss—shirts he’d wear,
jingles he’d hum, the organic brand of flour
he used to bake bread—these things pulse an essence in places
only I can see. And everywhere
becomes aisles at a Grief-Mart
under-charging currencies of want. So, I return to art—
sketching—pieces unbound to his presence—but absences live
in them like pacing tenets. And now here
I am, unsure of where
his ashes ended up. There was no funeral and I haven’t visited his place
since before it happened. So, I know that our
home state will greet a version of me, giddy to spend hours
with him. I will try to smarten
myself stoic. But then I will enter that place
in our garage, his racing bike and the first unicycle he gave me, alive
with a sacredness that will wear
the breath from me. And I’ll know he isn’t here.
Courtney Hitson
Courtney Hitson holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago and currently teaches English at the College of the Florida Keys. Her poems have appeared in The Wisconsin Review, Hoosier Lit, The Mom Egg, and are forthcoming in Mcneese Review. She is a former Pushcart nominee and resides with her husband, Tom, (a fellow poet) and two cats.