I Walk Through the Neighborhood Without You for the First Time Since Your Birth

Deirdre Lockwood

Camellia blossoms brown at the edges already 

I will be 60 when you are grown 

my mother a week ago on the couch silent after she told me this 

doing her own math 

I cried so she didn’t have to 

you will have let me go by the time you are that age

cherry blossoms    wedding rice

already 8 o’clock it’s getting dim—

birds calling to nest

porch lights on

camellias already rubble, first flowers of spring 

some brown low 

some still pink corsages

granny bushes 

I once disparaged them—

Deirdre Lockwood’s debut collection, An Introduction to Error, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in September 2025. Read more.