descend on the greens,
Returned like the fake
parmesan grated
Into another red stew of day
-- the basil still grows
tho with holes
and infested with seed,
Not going anywhere
It just exists to be purple
and rhyme with the lavender
Who gives way finally now
to the lull --
We can't quite call it a death.
The strawberries white
Surprise the guardians of the secret
who stand with scythes
smoking 3-rolls
At the oiled and now-calibrated gate.
The images yellow
like the grape vine leaves,
Ahead of the frost
that doesn't look
like it's coming --
Its plane was delayed
in Des Moines
And a bevy of cornhuskers
surprised they're still winning
Escorted it to oblivion --
The light she won't part with
keeps hope alive,
Tho the ghost gave up last winter
and the skeletons were removed
Along with a childhood of paintings,
the half-crafted yarns,
The albums that held all the smiles.
They are gone,
But what is left has been given
a reprieve --
More vagrancy
and loitering with intent
In a space that refuses
to be empty,
Refuses to admit it doesn't exist,
so the clock keeps ticking --
What would be a tale
of varnish and vanishing timelines,
The paperweights conveyed
to safer libraries,
Where the past doesn't weigh
quite this much,
Where breaths must be counted
til they end.
The last light in the window
sees a grimace still,
A thought that haunted mansions still glow,
and characters to mirror the not-you,
Who played their roles impeccably
still lurk inside your closets
stirring trembling ash --
But it is only the laugh that came with the house
that wants, after all, to go on living.
The dead have come so close I can't tell
which side is which.
