Remote

Are the bruised stems of poisonous lilies,
I picked a stalk from your abandoned Chinese-themed garden,
not gone because you are aloof, but because you are burned to ash,
or, settled to bed by great-grands under the cover of dense loam?

Today, the low clouds are as heavy as the lead weights we held and strung,
before casting off the edge of our rocking rowboat while fishing for King salmons.
What once stood, mid-century riches with sprawling decks, lined in red and pink, rhododendron, the steep drive you took such care to smear with sticky asphalt each spring,

are all up for auction, some far-flung day a vending, we all must face.
But never does the idea of hawking our isolation congeal into a thought of real, reality,
though we all discuss the trueness of it. For a time, the stellar jays will continue,
searching your abandoned feeders,

neighborhood children will scream against the wind, without your even being here,
the rest of the world light as flying feathers.
There too is the lion-knocker, the knocked over pergola, the blue stain of glass,
the parquet floors, yet your gold fish are gone,

your silk fans sold, and your Samsonite train-case claimed by a stranger.

Photo Credit: https://www.moneden.fr/article/amaryllis-belladonna