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.
