Heaven and Its Orange Flowers
       

Are you my ghost, I asked the water bucket, the Angelus,
a beard of moss grown over a statue's shoulder,

the concept of true friendship, a Rand McNally atlas so
trip-worn it could double as sheets for a doll bed.

The answer was no, so I shoved my fist into a hill.
Dropped my tiny beaded purse into the mall's atrium

fountain. Went back to the wing buffet, but it vanished
along with a major thoroughfare and creek

where I once fished illegally for legendary night bass.
I read a novel where butterflies grew plate-sized

and people congregated on rooftops to best view
burning woods from a distance. In the scrap cabin of

my ghost, the curtains roiled with fire, not as cleansing
or like a dancer with a pole-ribbon, but a holy

fire. Should I take some, I asked my ghost, who
at this point was purely hypothetical, Should I go next,

and then regretted the thought, like when I dropped
a blood-hue marker onto my gingham pants.

It's something impossible to retract. A neighbor
lamented how heaven is so greedy, but she picked all

the orange flowers from our bush. If my ghost
was a piece of debris, I would broom it away but not

forever. I thought my ghost was tangled in a kite.
Braided like a twine-knot baby beside the river's bed.

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Copyright © 2021 Mary Biddinger All rights reserved
from Bennington Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission