THE RAVEN REVIEW
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  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Support Us
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume V >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume VI >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II

Suicide's Grave

by Brandon Lewis
​We agree it’s the right thing,
a year later, and in a swarm

of mosquitoes we take turns
with a shovel off-trail at a stand

of cedars, take turns throwing
handfuls of dirt into a hole whitened

by your ashes, a sapling stuck
in its center. Rain patters

on leaves and drooping ferns,
drips from your father’s bald

head as he kneels down
and smooths the earth level

around the stalk, his touch caring
and precise like a gardener’s.

Everything he wishes he had said.
On the walk back to our cars

in the parking lot, the green
slopes of Mt. Pilchuck showing

through clouds, we give each
other quick looks, we nod not only

because you beat these trails,
or because you weren’t granted

a funeral service—not even a party
where everyone who knew you

could get shit-faced and blast
your favorite metal songs on the stereo--

but because a mind, whether
conscious or dreaming isn’t suited

to be a grave, and finally we needed
to put you someplace else.

Brandon Lewis was born in Seattle, Washington and lives with his wife and children just north of Centralia where he teaches high school English. In 2018, he received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. His poems have recently appeared in Talking River, Superstition Review, Nashville Review, and The Tusculum Review.