Listen to the bushes swaying lazily
in the front yard, accept the soft teal
rimming a bluebird sky.

Sit where she sat, nights in which she avoided skies--
a girl loosing thunder, a
piercing gaze as she
clowns deep in that whole and perfect red,
in the roses one plants for the elderly,
in the toes one cannot pull from the dirt.

If there are good droughts then these
stones by the hydrangia are at hand to mark where
the water in her little body once ran
and the vision plays again: war paint's runing down her face
two centuries of salt.

I step backwards over lost ground
to listen to you
like a father.

I am in the backyard.