Ghost Love

after Mark Doty’s “Beach Roses”

It’s years now, and still he haunts the roses

he planted that I do almost nothing

to keep alive. Some days, like a restless fog,

he scuds among the garden beds, blurring

among leaves and branches, everything

he ever was thinning into cloud.

But see how drupes compose an archipelago,

blooms of scarlet runner beans now islands,

the air itself a kind of sheen

that hints he has not faded to nothing,

that he shimmers dimly, not quite fleeting,

stubborn as his roses —

poor rugosa, hovering above death’s shore,

blotch-leafed, brave,

weary blossoms sagging like wasted candles.

Wordless now. Misted away all our sputtering talk.

I have to think he’s here, rarified, not yet crossed

into otherwhere. Oh faithful roses,

tell me where he ends.

PATRICIA ZYLIUS is the author of the chapbook Once a Vibrant Field. Read more.

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