Peonies after Rain

                                                                                

Hundreds of red and white flags border the square.

The bandstand erupts with echoes

of distant battle—

polished brass, steel,

stretched skin.

The cemetery sign says One Way, Do Not Enter.

But I am not driving through

like the faces behind glass on Memorial Day,

leaving red and white flags, plastic placards,

amputated flowers to dress up stones.

I am not bringing dead flowers

to remember the dead.

I do not want to remember

what’s left of you

in the black plastic bag.

The rain waited patiently until

the once-a-year folks drove away.

The peonies I planted have fallen in a circle,

white faces pressed against the grass,

shattered petals like shards of bone.

I found the skull of a deer in our woods,

fallen this side of the No Hunting sign

where the hunter did not track

the trail of blood, a clot of red

mushrooms erupting from the empty eye socket.

Walking the trail you bushwhacked,

I learned to see the world through your eyes.

Once, you stopped, looked up at the moon

and laughed. That’s when I saw the white rabbit

nibbling a moonflower.

A year ago I sprawled across squares of sod,

watching ants crawl all over

white peony globes. The buds refuse to open,

you said, until the ants lick off the sap

binding the petals.

A year has knit the broken ground.

Now a globe of white light rises

from the scattered petals.

I want see the moon

through your luminous eyes.