Calla Lilies From the Grocery Store
​
On the death of my brother
A captain on the Gulf of Mexico
I thought of tow lines frayed
And a sprawling black net lost beneath green waves
The death of my father
A brawling judge of a man
Taught me the gravity of moments missed
To confess and repair
My mother died of a stroke
Looking out the south window
Past the live oaks draped in moss
And every universe felt too small for my grief
Water and bone I am mostly
Liquid, brittle, and naked to the sky
Yet I remember faces and voices
Through my deep wandering sleeps
Return to them imperfectly
Sometimes watching, sometimes just enduring
my westering drives on Howard Avenue
​
I see calla lilies at the grocery store
As elegant as bridesmaids in prayer
I need not purchase what they mean
But recall their stalks are cut straight across
Without care for the height of water or limits of time
​
​
​