Pale wildflowers were left at your doorstep.
Near the end of spring warmer wind came
to stir hair from unrecognizable faces,
like your dead Civil War soldier boy
following you everywhere in the city.
That modern gothic city of torn dreams
melded you into a mature woman
the lost waif never left inside you.
To forage through oneiric possibility
existed in the plight of others,
you said, “whether alive or dead.”
He spread pale wildflowers every day
with blessings withering at your feet.
In his uniform, haunting the byways
shadow people drive by in distress,
plotting crime, doing life chores
while beating away real consciousness
in their unknowing human brains,
never seeing the Civil War soldier
with his purely diffracted skeletal face
(under dust of immanent thoughts)
they choose to deny & ignore totally
as dead flowers slowly stalk us.

– Peter Magliocco