Florida Funeral — Blackbird Archive

← v10n2, Fall 2011

I have decided you’re a paraquat.

You’re something of an herbicide that kills

Tussocks, but, more often, the twat

Of white blossoms and sweet navels. The rills

Are ill with your quick toxin. Still, the thing

Saving you is soil’s stability:

The ground of our aged nation and its wing

Of its American Kestrel, its bee,

Its gecko’s eyes. You cannot harm those black

Pupils. You lie, downed, indolent, inert,

Failed friend of homicide, a coronach;

You caused a Florida Funeral. It hurt

Me like the Texas kind—a seeming death

So premature: a newborn’s first–gasped breath.

ecology mortality nature

Erica Dawson

Erica Dawson is the author of two collections of poetry, The Small Blades Hurt (Measure Press, 2014) and Big-Eyed Afraid (Waywiser Press, 2007). Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Harvard Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is an associate professor of English and writing at the University of Tampa, and serves as the director of its low-residency MFA program. Photo by J.D.