Serial Afterlife

Plum blossoms, pear blooms, thin fans of almond, nectarine: Mourners come out into the spring. They have been walking around something utterly cold. Openly cold. Parking lot classical radio: “Pavane for a Dead Princess” by Ravel, someone actually arranged it for tuba. If time seems too dark for hope, my eldest cat fits his gaunt length into the window; he watches eyes of his juniors reflect full moon. Where did I read this? — a memory of separation: When the deceiver left his wife, she threw his two hundred hats out into the rain. Memory of a corner in an old house: Little white irises of Danish oils cope with fealty to a sinister stream. Walter said he sometimes just wants to go live in a painting. The humid colors of an empty street in Haleiwa in the Forties. He got to the service and found out it was for another Dorothy. But he stayed, for her. Our princess thinks Handel’s notes stir crisp as lab coats in a bell foundry. I hold Doc’s front legs together and dance him before I let him out. He rides the door in as if it were a surfer’s wave. The plum tree’s grown so tall its top fruit doesn’t drop but eases down by spider silk. We living, you know, we’ve looked silly — our spirit’s been a totem on a pogo stick — but we have loved each other silly too. Worship severely, you still worship good wood floors. Bees chaperone the pollens out on dates, an orange with a Meyer lemon. Your new plant is being’s push-up.

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