Two months beyond the scar of grave

we could be mad at messes you left:

bags of flour roaming with bugs;

tarnished silver, geyser gray,

tea cups with their handles loose.

Bedroom slippers quick as mice

reminding us who owned

the corners of this dark.

It's time to go back and clean,

my sister said, as if she were

boxing alyssum tears

that crumble from mistaken touch.

If we scrubbed with the metal of will,

the bourbon of grief would leave —

we did until our palms

went raw and bled on lace.

Found burlap bags of tulip bulbs

the sun had started on its own.

Cobwebs and clumps of Persian hair

were tropes with a fabric of past.
We brushed and mopped

as maids erase some crazy night,

shake their heads at semen pools.

Uniforms of stoic bras with metal

in their sagging circles weren't

enough to hold a tomb with stinging rocks

that multiplied like winter hail.

We shook out oriental rugs —

hyper kids we meant

to settle down for bed.

They followed, clung,

they wetted, screamed

in margins of our memories.

I guess your stain deserved to stay.

“Out out, damned spot”

never worked for heroines

in Shakespeare's velvet tragedies.

Fruit stand gone, but still we knew

an Eden once dripped cherry juice.

Rooms still bore your fragrances —

glued to meat like ginger root.