Passing Afternoon

There are times that walk from you

like some passing afternoon

Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon

And she chose a yard to burn

but the ground remembers her

Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away

like our endless, numbered days

Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made

And she's chosen to believe

in the hymns her mother sings

Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass

all our bodies in the grass

Springtime calls her children until she lets them go at last

And she's chosen where to be

though she's lost her wedding ring

Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall

Blind as night that finds us all

Winter tucks her children in her fragile china dolls

But my hands remember hers

rolling around the shaded ferns

Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea

only now I do believe

Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me

But she'll mend his tattered clothes

and they'll kiss as if they know

A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone