Neil Shepard




This Is How It Is

	(Sweetbriar, VA)

I’m old enough to know this daylight 
savings time’s a ruse, yet I’m out here 
near sundown, haunting one more hour 
of light, inhaling flowers like there’s no 
tomorrow: lilacs, especially lilacs, 
that incarnate bait: open your mouth, 
waft this in, now tell me you don’t want a body. 
And there’s more where that came from: bleeding 
heart, marsh marigold, blossom of plum and persimmon, 
all floating in spring ether. I’m out here, suckered 
by spring and this heart—what to do but smother it 
in flowers, daylight savings flowers that come 
long before the first gold hues of leaves, 
longer still before inexorable green 
spoils my mood. Green says I’m growing 
old and mute as moss. In April rain, May 
swell, June fulcrum, July slide, August dust, 
I hear it. And September, September’s leaves 
hang like dog-eared pages I’d rather not read 
again. Oh, for October where together we tear 
to shreds those stories of second comings, watch 
them fall down around us. The older I grow, 
the closer in age to god, who is timeless. 
Soon I’ll be going home. Today, I’m burying my face 
in flowers, trying to smell from the living side 
what it’ll be like when I’m swimming 
in flowers, and I don’t smell a thing.