In the widening garden, beside the car pit,
indulgent tubes and genderless brass valves
sit under trinkets and knickknacks.
A modish robe of roses rusts on the railing.
You can even inspect the scissored fence.
Crouch near the fridge; its unproven veins
of painted music—the flowers civil now.
A child sits up from the intimate stone
carving of which it is a part, as if to flush
this floodlit room that no sun pauses over.
The year is 1957. I’m someone’s mother.
Pieces of porcelain fingers fondle weeds.
Sap bubbles; cauterizes.
When did everyone
darken out their long unwindowness? This is
a question I have nodded to, squatting in fat leaves,
basking for an hour beside cake, bearded with rain.
APRIL 2009