It’s a ruined house, held in the arms
of a hedgerow, where ivy clutches
like a wounded child and peppermint
dots the brick. Moles furrow under
the clover, turn blind eyes to sky.
There’s a ragged hole torn in the eave
where music pours down, pouring
like a deluge from a clogged gutter.
Notes pour like thinning skin
or paint flaking—it caroms, blunders,
it is a ball lost down the stairsteps
of a root cellar. I pause, listening.
The rhapsody drops like a glacier,
and the sun stands defiant at my side.
Spring hostas creep, their clumsy
introductions unfurl like loose tablature,
hangars where birds pick the worms,
green ribs arching to catch the music
coursing its tributes to dirt beds.