(In memory of my mother, Marian)


I think you liked spring because it proceeded summer.
Summer when you flirted with the sun
in evenings backyard,placed like a tether to kids romping swing around,

as the coals melt color similar to the sun setting,
you and he talking quietly under the tree, and me
a driveway scatter of little girl running barefoot and unsweatered.

You wore your summer skin to softest brown
and smiled until the lines were etched into who you were.
Even on those days when I saw your down eyes,
I knew the lasting was only a small measure and would pass.
You took out the splinters with tweezers made of gold
and buried them in a place that I could not find,
not even with the measure that you gave me to keep me safe.

You planted those petunias until they became a part of you, remember?
And when spring spreads them into gardens
I see you bent over the dark earth with my legs and hips
and somehow we are melted into time that does not die
but opens like seasoning in the breeze across time,
a bloom that stays.