Red Poppy

Forever embalmed in the corner of my mind

is a red poppy flower,

bending with the breeze.

It was your favorite flower.

I remember how happy you were

when they were in your garden,

and you would point them out to me often.

But the poppies began to disappear

year after year,

until they weren’t in your garden anymore.

I remember how sad you were

and how you asked me to plant more,

in the fallow soil that remained.

But the years crept slowly by

and the garden did lie,

fallow.

Until one day the men came

and ripped the garden out of the earth,

and covered it with sidewalk concrete.

I remember the poppies

so red and soft in the summer sun,

they lie embalmed in my minds eye.

But the garden is a memory

the poppies have died,

and no height of my desire

shall ever give a chance

to plant those poppies again.