" Drought "
The belly of August spills into the yard;
brown heads of flowers take on the look of old sailors
swaying back and forth on their stems. It is too late
for the Cleome still in their flats, it is too late for everything left undone.
I am trying to teach myself not to love, denying the place
that is earth. A field inside where poppies grow —
call it fire, name it regret.
Earth is a strange place to bury bodies
when there are trees to hang our bones. Think of the music,
the white sound brushing the bark of an oak.
I have written down the names
of all the people I have ever loved,
yet no one has returned.
Absence is a pod, a seed. It does not only bloom
but lingers. There is no waste with death —
name it fire, call it regret.
© 2003 Treezaa (T.E. Ballard)
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