| for KJB |
Lingering in the West
I flick the porchlights on
and carry the can of gas
into the once oriental splendor
of a garden. Roses stoop.
Green flickers on their frayed filaments,
and the spectral moon
grazes the rotting leaves,
the copper wings.
The East is awake
in that moon's solemn face,
ghost-risen and it watches
season's end. Petals fold, the gas
can pulling down and to the earth,
a tidal pull. Small moons
swim there, flare white.
And the lights
in other people's houses,
people I do not know,
flicker and die out--
Ash on the horizon.
The beetles are now a black heap
next to the ragged flowers.
Roses for lovers. Roses
for the dead, the beetles
in their soot-black can,
the air thick with gas,
sullen and still volatile.
| (South Hadley, 1977, 1978; Gainesville, 1982.) | |
| Published in Pegasus, the Mount Holyoke College literary magazine; and in The Oyster Boy Review. |