to Mary Rose
Here is our little yard
too small for a pool
or chickens let alone
a game of tag or touch
football Then
again this stub-
born patch
of crabgrass is just
big enough to get down
flat on our backs
with eyes wide open and face
the whole gray sky just
as a good drizzle
begins I know
we’ve had a monsoon
of grieving to do
which is why
I promise to lie
beside you
for as long as you like
or need
We’ll let our elbows
kiss under the downpour
until we’re soaked
like two huge nets
left
beside the sea
whose heavy old
ropes strain
stout with fish
If we had to we could
feed a multitude
with our sorrows
If we had to
we could name a loss
for every other
drop of rain All these
foreign flowers
you plant from pot
to plot
with muddy fingers
—passion, jasmine, tuberose—
we’ll sip
the dew from them
My darling here
is the door I promised
Here
is our broken bowl Here
my hands
In the home of our dreams
the windows open
in every
weather—doused
or dry—May we never
be so parched
Copyright © 2024 by Patrick Rosal. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 13, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
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