for my mother
As Mary talks
of walking a Long Island garden
with her grandmother
I walk there too
but I am with you
our arms wrapped like vines
as we wander the gravel path
surrounded by columning clouds of
lilies leaning like limp Victrolas
and rising rows of roses
suddenly falling
into a flowing field of sunflowers.
We look a long time.
I feel you tiptoe toward my ear.
I bend to catch your whisper:
“Van Gogh would have liked it here.”
Roger Armbrust
1990s
