14 years ago, I left it,

there on the wide wooden shelf

painted red, where the stairs

up to her door

bend in two.

Her mother tended her rows

of potted geraniums

and added the shelf

after her husband died.

My own Thai chilies rested there,

ensconced invader amid her mother’s geraniums,

symbol of commitment in a Japanese pot

with wooden handles,

another practice family in a string of dead

trial runs.  The wind battered it and

the rain tried to drown it, but

its chilies kept turning green to red

and exploding.  My knees

buckle in the cold post-storm air

as I climb to that perch, then turn around

when I see not even dirt remains as trace,

my throat tight and body fleeing.

Whose house this is now, I do not know,

nor they (my knees imagine)

the red wood shelf and little chilies,

grown to trees in last night’s dream,

abandoned somewhere along the way.

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