Passages
In town, the houses sprout up every day.
They stand side by side—
rows of squeaky clean windows
and muted colors,
each almost exactly the same
like friends who wear the same clothes
but with different accessories.
One yard draped with shrubbery.
Another bright with bunting.
A third cluttered with potted plants.
The neighborhoods echo
with the kind of quiet that fills families
of kids raised mostly inside.
Year by year, the trees retreat
and I think of the drive back home last week—
of how the road seemed impossibly green,
impossibly lush, with so many leaves and vines
scrambling toward sky
that they blotted out the sun
and erased the horizon—
as if nature
was weaving a tunnel to the past
or preparing for battle.
*
The Visitor
I watched for him all July.
Without warning, the young buck
would materialize out of the soft, summer twilight
and destroy the hostas
at the border between forest and lawn.
That summer there were no flowers
for the wind to toss–
no pale petals
to illuminate the darkness like little moons–
not even a few green leaves
to compensate for the general lack of beauty.
The garden diminished, darkened
to a useless, unsightly stubble.
I didn’t mind. A glimpse of velvet antlers,
of golden coat,
more than enough to banish
the loneliness that chilled my nights
and kept the neighbors at bay.
The next summer he was gone.
My hostas spindly and uncertain
and so small they seemed forever broken.
I looked for him anyway–
when the gate between light and dark
hung open,
when the shadows of the trees
bled into night.
© Lori Lamothe
Lori Lamothe has published four books of poetry, most recently Tulip Fever (Kelsay Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Glassworks, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Literary Review, Seattle Review and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston-Victoria and is an associate English professor at Quinsigamond Community College.
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