When That April by David Ram

After the widow’s daylong funeral,
the grieving guests departed, grown children
returned to their lives, and timed lamps appeared,

the windows of her empty house emit
an amber glow along the gravel road,
illuminating yellow daffodils.

In several months, the realtor arrives,
admires the lady ferns flooding the curb,
the tiger lilies lining the driveway,

and the kousa dogwood draping the walk,
but inside, he pulls wilted violets
from alcove sills and trashes plastic pots.

When a fluke October blizzard buries
the garden, the new woman and her two
little children build a snowman with eyes

of stone, a carrot nose, and pine-branch arms;
below the soppy snow, daffodils dream
of flowering and form their daughter bulbs.



David Ram lives in western Massachusetts, where he practices poetry writing and dory rowing: his recent poems appear in Naugatuck River Review and Grand Little Things; his rowboat appears regularly on Nashawannuck Pond.