In the thick
of it, she walks
all the way around
the mess

of road destruction
she almost bought
23 years ago.

It’s not the drizzly
November in her soul.
It’s the breeding lilacs
out of the dead

land, mixing memory
and desire. Can’t be bothered
to dig out

any quotation
marks. It’s the splaying
across mud-caked,
still-drained fountains.

The heat of Sunday
colliding with Monday’s
sleet. The horror

of another desertion
hanging in the sky
like some pink,
pink, pink, pink,

pink moon
hungover from
another decade.

It’s the dread
of reaching

another blank wall
so thickened

even the blood
won’t stain it.

Relief that no one
remembered to unlock
the cellar door.