In My Little Paradise

So overgrown, the yellow poppies

keel over. After so much beauty,

after the heat spells of August,
a full house and then an empty house,

sweeping up to a little music
(a favorite cup dropped from a shelf),

too many attachments here:
who drank from which glass,

who couldn’t bear a phrase,
who became so shrill I’d shrink back

from what’s imprinted there. How to take
those ragged bursts of color now,

or the kerchief left behind, a scent
that lingers longer than the person.

How can I keep my own head up
when having been inside someone

is …