Hyacinth by Lee Upton

Hyacinth: killed by a stone discus, by accident or out of anger, thrown by his lover.

And always after one murder or another 

a great power wonders,

how shall I commemorate the act?

Already the boy is frightened as the stone speeds

from a god’s fingertips and

sweeps through the air to his temple 

—stunned. Irreversible

the moment the sky opened to kill him.

The power that hurled his death was stung,

but continued on, although saddened, 

and sent to the funeral these

blood drops, plump, sleeved in green. 

Early spring, snow still on the ground,

and what’s alive shivers. Chilled:

a body was here: a chisel,

rooting upward into fragrance,

a petition of grief, washed in icy silt.

The scent drifts, 

a little rebellion but not justice,

wrung from a wound.

Lee Upton’s most recent book is Visitations: Stories. Her seventh book of poetry, THE DAY EVERY DAY IS, won the 2021 Saturnalia Prize and is forthcoming from Saturnalia in 2023. Her poetry has appeared widely, including in three editions of Best American Poetry.

13 June 2022