Steel Cannot Be Soil

By Melissa M. Sharp

“Ask the lilacs.”

My mother told me once when I was young. 

She had cupped my hand,

leading me down paths of wheat fields,

occasionally stopping to admire the flowers that bloomed from the grainy soil, 

underfoot. 

Her smile was radiant!

God, how her laughter dripped like warm honey from my ears.

And by knowing all things holy, 

I can utter a fact so earnest it makes me cry:

She was a goddess, my darling mother. 

And I am, 

her deceiving daughter,

part liar, 

part 

                                                                                                                                     orphan. 

For I didn’t have the heart to tell her what she did not know.

It is true, we harbour the same blood 

the same bones

the same skin

but,

we do not hold the same tongue.

‘Dearest child, why will you not ask the lilacs?’

Thus, when the lilacs bloomed at my mother’s voice, 

‘Can’t you see? I am trying.’

they withered and decayed at my own. 

My hopeful question dwindled into incoherent muttering, 

where the mystery I wanted was my salvation. 

You ask too much of me.

Until…

The lilac spoke, 

but never how I dreamed it would be. 

‘Are you not your mother’s daughter?’

and my throat hurt and ached as I hoarsely replied with a shaky lip, 

concealing a tongue of falsehood.

‘Mother nature has many daughters,

and I am not one of them.’

But oh, how I yearn to be. 

Some of us are not born by harvest

but by,

Steel. 

Oil.

Grease.

And for this, I am punished irrevocably.

Clever enough to hide amongst my mother’s daughters,

but cursed in never discovering what the lilacs do say.

By Melissa M. Sharp