yesterday, I carried a sprig of Sweet William
three miles to a favorite poet’s grave
simply because you do not have one
and there, the trees were a free-for-all
of birds – oh, gorgeous, noisome riot!
some other Spring mourner before me had left
a tiny, silver “s” of a snake – something you
(poet, brother) both would have appreciated
each year, I am less clever, more gray –
but only this newspaper clipping of you ages
© Sarah Whiteley
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