Patricia Zylius

I live in a house that my late first husband and I bought fifty-four years ago. My roots have sunk deep here. I can’t count how many of my poems have sprouted from this yard and garden. Much of what grows here — the apple, the persimmon, many perennials — are things Tom planted and tended until we split up. Though he has been gone for many years, and much of the garden has changed, something of him still wanders around. I don’t say no to him when he walks into a poem, sometimes surprising me. I’m grateful.

My poem “Ghost Love” was inspired by Mark Doty’s “Beach Roses,” a poem I love and have by heart. I used the last word of each of his lines as the last word in each of mine. “Ipomoea” is about one of the things Tom planted, not realizing how invasive it would be. He loved it anyway. And as annoying as I sometimes find it, its blooming is like a visit from him.