“Life After Love”

worming through my skin, eating me alive.  He warned
me long ago, the kind man, the giver, the death-bringer.
And I listened that day, letting the words sink into my soft

brain, letting the concept dance inside.  I listened,
but I did not heed.  I danced today through the gardens,
among the chrysanthemums

and along the hedgerow and stopped at the birdbaths
under the tallest cherry tree to look in the water,
and already I could see the pink and red blossoms

covering my cheeks and forehead, a warning of the bleak winter.
I remember him telling me I could have avoided it, and I wondered
if the male black widows that live in the trees consider their fate

when they go to their women.  I was out of breath
as I walked away from the birdbath,
the birds splashing as they always have.

I heard the urgent voices of the doctors and nurses
in my head, begging me to take the pills, allow the soldiers
to march through my body and vanquish the enemy,

but my body was not theirs to make a battlefield.

The cherry trees and perennials will weep,
their cries quivering even their deepest roots.