The Dead
They waft through.
The end brushes their faces.
Reminiscent of
leaves blown against
vegetable skin. The
landscape soaks with,
saturates with, this
growing out of season.
Weeds rise from the inside,
and like vines, scale interior
walls, crumble stone, hiding
in the cracks while rooting
for the breast of destruction.
Lives are spread out.
Spilled flowers, and at
the last it all lay written
across the years when the
pulsing, fecund ending, still
in pieces was unfolding
in the weeds.
You don’t know nuthin’ folks.
They wait like children who
know exactly when to get into
locked gardens the mothers
left for a minute for
groceries or shopping, for
a cocktail, meaning to return,
only to linger over the
afternoon.
If you gasp folks in the
second before reality finds
you counting your blessings,
you never looked them in
the face, never saw the
wind part the sky in front
of them, never touched the
ivy stuffing the holes,
where the sadness milks into.
Go home, the dead have
already bloomed. You can’t
find them in the landscape
of their ends if you have
to ask. You never knew that
Death which, on the ground,
blows around our faces.
Waits.
5. 14.92
Revised 7.25.24
Beloit Poetry Journal rejected 7/14/91
The Limberlost Review rejected 8/15/92
The Little Magazine rejected 1/23/93