Lily from the valley
is the tarp of your backyard.
Bells of white tussled
perfect petal skin
I ask you how
you keep the rain away
from gushing gardens
to slabs of asphalt
toward the neighborhood.
Where your neighbors
know well the blue tarp
to put over trees in
summer to keep from
blistered rain and
the steam after that
makes the house
stuffy.
Leaving clinging traces of
dirt not unlike dust,
that you
try to get used to.
You dust in the mornings,
during afternoon brunch.
To your late-night dinner,
when it snuffs out your
rose candle lights
in grainy specks of sand.
Before
you learn
to give up
on washing
the walls
with water or
OxiClean,
on your
knees with a
washcloth,
bleach
speckled in
your tub.
It’s
as much
of your home
as the mold
building
underneath
your dish rack.
The bleach you
can’t get out of your clothes.
No matter how many cycles
in the wash you repeat.
You get used to the freckled
grain like a second layer of
skin.
You pretend not
to know what
grain feels like
when you go to the ocean
to tan and swim looking
for seals in the reflection of your glasses
behind you on your towel.
But you forget again in
water reflections
of your lily of the valley
drop bed bathtub of
the sand lingering at home.
