Wotton Hill, you are a cage
for my wife’s deceased body and
my mind, blushing furiously as
I recall our times –

twenty spokes for those who
climb ladders backwards, the trees
leaves spilling into a driveway

and I would bundle the biggest
under my jacket, or my hat,
even a tulip for her bonnet’s tip.

She looked like a Redcoat,
and I, midnight’s dove,
lingering on some lane far from
our home, golden even for us,

fell back on a landscape of
solstice, each pine has a lady
inside waiting to be released for
God’s unheeding eyes:

when he weeps for his children,
I do not remember mine, but
my wife along dusty ways

and singing her seasonless song,
with every color flora against
her scalp, her retinas, her breast.

She looked her best when
she was guarding a sad head –
Wotton Hill bringing her face to
one heart-shaped windowpane

swaying in forest unhappiness
and now along this circlet,
my wife lays dead.