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The title of Sara Tracey’s And After This contains two ultimately unsolvable mysteries that add to a sense of loss and suspended grief created by the use of ashes (which are not cremated remains or something holy but, rather, the more everyday ash of cigarettes), the description of the mother after surgery, and the desire to visit the cemetery.

The most obvious mystery is what exactly “this” refers to. If we read the title also as the first line of the poem (And After This / I have nothing holy to say) then “this” indicates what is said in the poem, the last holy words of a human remembering the pain of growing wings and describing the surface of potentially spiritual actions. “This” could also refer to something prior: the mother’s surgery (and recovery or death), a diagnosis that has created awareness of the need for “a headstone meant for me”, or anything really. That this cannot be nailed down with any precision or certainty reflects the irretrievability of the past and thus supports the need to grieve for it.

If the title is not read as if it were the first line of the poem, one may also ask: after this what? Such uncertainty about the future reflects the liminality of states of bereavement and grief. It is in the context of this liminality, too, that the final lines become a sign of hope, though other interpretations remain valid. “I will remember / how it hurt to grow wings” is about recalling in the midst of one painful liminal state how a similar state has allowed one to grow in the past. Using wings as a symbol for this is by no means original, but that is necessary in such a short poem, as using something like horns or a tail would require several more verses to serve the purpose of reclamation.

Related posts:

1. One-Poem Review: TATTOO-PASSION: A definition by Kathrin Schaeppi
2. One-Poem Review: Arlene Ang’s Wednesday
3. One Poem Review: Another Day Without Lin
4. One Poem Review: quiet as it’s kept by Evie Shockley
5. One-Poem Review: Something Like an Asshole, or, How to Read the Rind
6. One Poem Review: Last Surviving Pencil by Arlene Ang
7. One-Poem Review: J Michael Wahlgren’s Mercury
8. One Poem Review: A Tailor Would Think Differently
9. One-Poem Review: Mia Yun’s Brooklyn, First Spring
10. One-Poem Review: If My Father Had Died by Kathleen Hellen

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