Pastoral without Fairies in the Hawthorn

I am too near to it, even here, even in the headache
of bees in the hedgerows banishing the long dark
of your lungs, the ugly magenta of your afflicted
heart, your body a fever of unlived futures. I think
I could have hurt you back if I loved you enough,
but I kept quiet, already bruised pink as a solstice,
a spell of shrapnel and pollen. Bone roses weep
their liberal praise as I photograph bouquets at
your first funeral. The cheap resilience of hymns.
A heaven emptied of fire alarms. I didn’t know
what it felt like to miss someone until years after
you died, and then the pitiless decade pulled loaf
after loaf of rain from me. Happiness is not a cure
but an ending. Clover purples the drought. My hips
wide as a choir of winter butterflies. No one visits
and your ghost wonders why. Why the toadstool
ring stops longing for the changelings, mothers
the empty circumference instead. It is the singing.