This is the last. The end of color. Tonight,
after hearing frost warnings, I snip the flowers,
make bouquets, bring them into the house
to die. One vase on a kitchen table, subject
for a still-life, lovely for everyone to see —
red petals falling onto the glass butter dish.
Remember it? And the flat white stone
we dug from the soil? Last month, I traveled
to White Point, Nova Scotia, as far
from the loneliness of our Midwest garden
as I could, flung out stone into the crash and spume,
white into white, into black undertow like soil.
I slumped on the grassy cliff. While I napped,
maybe a speckled gull alighted on my chest,
pecked at my heart, then flew up with my grief.
No, it was God lifting you out of my heart
because I could not. I don't blame you
for wanting distraction — at the window, waving to me,
while having lunch with him. You were learning
new words to describe me: fish-in-the-sea, long ago,
once! And I'm learning the names of our failure —
geranium, sunflower, magnolia, azalea.