Picking up Easter lilies
snails severed at the neck,
I understand Mimi
who never left home.

Last week, a girl from my old school
walked into gunfire
on the road I dawdled home on
half a life ago.

Death stayed at home
then, where Lana Turner’s daughter
stabbed Johnny Stompanato
and my friend Terry’s step-dad
bashed in her dark brown head.
And Helen, after dyeing
her red hair black,
ran away from home.
When her father brought her back,
she ate a hundred aspirin,
went to bed.

I put on gloves
to scatter snail pellets
in the shade of white carnations,
and pick from dirt
the empty shells
whose insides have fizzed
to another place.
Ants climb the gladiola’s
tall green pole
and aphids encase
the red hibiscus.
So many yellow leaves,
so many buds falling.