On Coming Back to the Country House
Everything’s the same---last year’s dry weeds
in a tangled spill, willow branches down again,
leaves and twigs scattered across the grass
just beginning to green.
Daffodils, popping up, right on time.
Upstairs, the renters’ bloodstains
on the comforter cover.
We can’t find the comforter
and Peter says they must have used it
to wrap the body.
But no; I recognize these
as menstrual stains. I’m irked,
unsure if they’ll come out and wondering
what a new cover will cost.
Secretly, I like thinking of them,
strangers to us, a young couple,
making that passionate, irrepressible love of youth
maybe saying “Wait, the sheets!”
but going ahead with everything anyway.
Young, leaving the proof
they’re still able to procreate.
Still, tomorrow I’ll spend half a day
at the Greenville laundromat
cursing them, doing what I can
to erase the evidence.
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