Portrait with Muse
 

What were you whispering then,
some gossip about a friend
at the wedding.  It was not poetry.
 
Still, you were by my side,
whispering a softened diatribe,
you in your cotton hand-embroidered dress,
 
two clusters of red poppies
on either side of the clavicle,
you were the flower girl,
 
those flowers put me in mind
(I can drift off with the best,) of the funeral
we attended a few days before,
 
a grand Irish uncle with a deep laugh
with eyes green as Jameson glass,
and the flowers there, the flowers
 
cut for the occasion, dying themselves
for the event, cloyingly sweet,
sent out their rich perfumes
 
as if to commiserate with the dead,
an odor so thick it stuck in the throat,
enough to make the living faint,
 
—they richly deserved a rest— 
but you brought them back to view
brightly dancing on your dress,
 
and there I was, dreaming the world
or the world dreaming me,
and could turn in a flash,
 
go bad as a nasty storm— 
your sister the bride
had me in a white suit,
 
I read from the Book of Ruth,
“Wither thou goest . . .” and it was true,
I never could move far from you,
 
as if I stayed around only to know
how flowers speak—or grieve—how they send
out their riches to silence speech.