some roads I don’t care to travel anymore

for E. L. 


Fridays, I drove Route 119
at sunset toward your old
home, turning off at the 
potholed road to clatter 
through meadows dotted 
with cows and cornflowers, 
steered toward your white 
house, begonias in the midst
of a repotting, your massive 
gray and white cat, your 
poems with their wide angles 
swooping tight toward 
interior shots of farmhouses 
where I could see myself 
through the windows, 
pouring coffee and waiting 
out a storm, and you wrote
trillium and cow shit, luna 
moth and empty bottle, you 
wrote redbud and owl 
feather, you wrote bouquet 
and cigarette, you wrote lace 
dress and pizza box, and 
then you wrote loss into 
asphalt with your hair