It’s March. The earth is dirge-soft with daffodils.
The rain goes through seven stages of grief.
When I was a girl, the first daffodils I ever planted
died. I picked them and buried their yellow bodies in our yard.
Now my heart shrinks, leaving the ache of a large seed.
The sky sorrowful with weather.
We plant ourselves
in the pub she loved, dipping
our grief in beer.
The man at the bar is someone I recognize.
Someone I went on a date with once.
His hands shriveled around my waist. I shrunk
back in the earth. Turning white with winter. Until he sparrowed away.
Now another season dies.
The bar a sepulcher, faces shimmering
bulbs, swollen with tears, worms working
their way towards a communal end.
Outside larks nest together. The wasp dies
inside its hanging garden grave.
I become bulb without bud, my eyes closing,
wet to sunlight.
Across the bar the man from the terrible date resurrects himself
from the mud-slick stool.
I track myself like a season. How many flowerings left. How many seeds.
The skin turns yellow with wondering.
Time to make amends with the earth and what it offers.
I lift my glass, open casket catching the light
of the half-empty moon.
***
