It was a strange, mutilated April. The Cherry Pie flower was in bloom, months earlier
than was its custom.
*
He had changed, that spring when the wool-mullein moon floated above the Mobile River.
Almost, almost, he was able to tell her that he loved her, but finally he could not.
*
Red roses bloomed on the wallpaper in the bedroom at Oakleigh House. Blue paua shell
rings in the shape of stars and crescent moons for sale in the gift shop. The tour guide
spoke of summers long ago, when Yellow Fever took a thousand lives.
*
She thought of her life of a cup of electrum, alloy of gold and silver.
*
They were married in summer, when the Swan River Everlasting was in bloom. In Alabama,
in an old house in Mobile.
*
Where is the way out of this maze, through the fields of sunflowers?