The moth, on her back below the porchlight. The cat toeing the top rail for centuries & it’s true the crows learn to imitate the other birds. One chair to another & back, my father’s body won’t come any stronger & there’s room yet for the alliums lifting tall, the hydrangeas but now they’re purple & maybe never blue. On an overcast day—this one, the one I know from childhood & all too well—there flickers every flower nameless to me. Add to them the branch of apples too small to eat & how we walked uphill, both ways, except there was no hill, nothing but the great disassembly into words. This head gone heavy between your hands & even death forgets to switch off the light, to say goodbye.