Reading on My Birthday
Contentment fills the grassy yard
within a wire fence meant to be electrified
but never completed. I set aside my book.
Beds spill fat peonies, old-fashioned hollyhocks,
roses so scent-laden their heads are bowed.
The big white house at the center of the universe
stands with doors ajar, windows propped
on wooden rules. Card slaps card as Betty
plays solitaire, bare feet pad polished wood,
air thick with humidity and cicada buzz.
Outside the back gate lies the little graveyard –
split-rail fence. Wild cherry trees flank the gate,
provide a funeral cortege. People I’ve known
and loved lie here pressed between two dates,
preface to epilogue.
Not six feet away, brazen cottontails nibble,
mockingbird scatters melodies from the mimosa:
twenty? fifty? more? I inhale rose scent,
a second flowering, pick up my book. I
have reached denouement, autumn is fleeting.
I’ve not many pages left.
within a wire fence meant to be electrified
but never completed. I set aside my book.
Beds spill fat peonies, old-fashioned hollyhocks,
roses so scent-laden their heads are bowed.
The big white house at the center of the universe
stands with doors ajar, windows propped
on wooden rules. Card slaps card as Betty
plays solitaire, bare feet pad polished wood,
air thick with humidity and cicada buzz.
Outside the back gate lies the little graveyard –
split-rail fence. Wild cherry trees flank the gate,
provide a funeral cortege. People I’ve known
and loved lie here pressed between two dates,
preface to epilogue.
Not six feet away, brazen cottontails nibble,
mockingbird scatters melodies from the mimosa:
twenty? fifty? more? I inhale rose scent,
a second flowering, pick up my book. I
have reached denouement, autumn is fleeting.
I’ve not many pages left.
Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Recent books include: So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020). Chapbooks include: Black Crow in Flight, Editor’s Choice –Main Street Rag, 2007 and Softly Beating Wings, 2017 William D. Barney winner (Blackbead Books). Ann’s work appears in many small press and university journals here and abroad.
No comments:
Post a Comment