CLEARING, LIBERTY WASHINGTON
by Roberta Feins
Sunny field by the river
squared with knotted wire, grass
apron-high, peopled by bees
and two lilacs, one white, one lavender
in full flower, but without the house
whose woman planted them, without
a jelly glass to hold their spires
on a wooden table next to a dish of peas.
Isn’t this the way you’d rather
be remembered? Not “Wife”
or “Mother” but as lilacs,
full fragrant in the senses
of a stranger on a late spring day.
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