It’s March. The earth is dirge-soft with daffodils. 

The rain goes through seven stages of grief.

When I was a girl, the first daffodils I ever planted 
died. I picked them and buried their yellow bodies in our yard. 

Now my heart shrinks, leaving the ache of a large seed. 
The sky sorrowful with weather.

We plant ourselves
in the pub she loved, dipping
our grief in beer.

The man at the bar is someone I recognize.
Someone I went on a date with once.

His hands shriveled around my waist. I shrunk 
back in the earth. Turning white with winter. Until he sparrowed away. 

Now another season dies.
The bar a sepulcher, faces shimmering

bulbs, swollen with tears, worms working
their way towards a communal end. 

Outside larks nest together. The wasp dies
inside its hanging garden grave.

I become bulb without bud, my eyes closing,
wet to sunlight.

Across the bar the man from the terrible date resurrects himself
from the mud-slick stool.

I track myself like a season. How many flowerings left. How many seeds. 
The skin turns yellow with wondering.

Time to make amends with the earth and what it offers.

I lift my glass, open casket catching the light 
of the half-empty moon.

***

Photo by Warner on Unsplash