Meghan Sterling

Sonnet with Lilacs and a Crescent Moon

You know you will die in the spring when
the lilacs are in full bloom. The white sky
will smell of purple and the large clusters
of blossoms will be wet and tissue-thin and
there will be mounds of petals in the grass
and on the sidewalks as if lilacs knew or cared
about your death enough to release thousands of
themselves in an act of grieving, your yard and
house crowned with potent perfume the texture of
a grandmother’s hair and a solemn confetti parade.
You know there will be lilacs and people will come
and go from the house and the moon will be at its
most delicate, a crescent as slender as the first birdsong
one April morning when you suddenly hear singing

Meghan Sterling (she/her/hers) is a queer/bi writer and working mother living in Maine whose poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Tahoma Literary Review, the Los Angeles Review, the Colorado Review, Rhino Poetry, Hunger Mountain and many other journals. Her collections are These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books), Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions), Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press) and View from a Borrowed Field (Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize). You Are Here to Break Apart (Lily Poetry Review Press), came out in April 2025 and Sick Poems from the Lovebed (Harbor Editions) is forthcoming in 2026.