Ephemeral as a dream wildflowers braided in wisps of hair like tenderness and jealousy, intertwining queen anne’s lace capricious chicory, aster fickle and forlorn, their petals go limp and wither My soul a solemn barn in vast meadows of switchgrass and thistle swooping swallows and solitude cat’s cradle, lavender’s blue dilly dilly I play alone at the forest fringes in the ripe dusk with my companion, imagined Dew-laden Saturday mornings slanted sunlight, regretful lilacs lament in syrupy perfume, first communions starched white dresses, hairspray and ribbons we would have fidgeted together sitting stiffly on wooden church benches amid the altar lilies and incense you make appearances in the mind’s fog lost in the timeless night wandering in shadow sometimes reproachful or mischievous a dusky presence, my almost friend Always standing on the outskirts of intimacy of the twirling circle of those spinning girls with plaited hands
remembering the few barbed words
like little daggers
crushed by a single glance
or snigger
how sweetness and cruelty
can reside like bedmates
in feminine hearts
over the decades, our hair would gray
memories would deepen our days
our children would share Christmases, Easters
you would give your love and withdraw it
there would be suffering, but
I would return to you, again and again
marriages would fade
parents would pass on
children forget to call
but the nectar of your voice
would welcome me back like a monarch to its milkweed
Like a dove
I mourn you
like the solitary clover lost in fields erupting with blossoms
I grieve the day
you were never born. (After Andre Previn’s "Vocalise")
