Memorial Day
By Rob Petrillo
Not untypically, we’d had an argument.
Not a big one, just the usual sort.
Was it really necessary to dig up the hydrangea
simply because its blooms didn’t coordinate
with the other ephemeral splashes of color?
Call it another battle in the ceaseless strife
between practicality and aesthetics.
Or call it just another instance
of daily domestic friction.
Not a big one, just the usual sort.
Was it really necessary to dig up the hydrangea
simply because its blooms didn’t coordinate
with the other ephemeral splashes of color?
Call it another battle in the ceaseless strife
between practicality and aesthetics.
Or call it just another instance
of daily domestic friction.
In the end, did it really matter? A bit
of sweat and some dirt under the fingernails
was not an unbearable burden to manage.
What’s nearly unbearable is the memory
of those mundane disputes,
the belated awareness of just how much
I’d miss them, and of just how much
I’d give to be once more in the garden
surrendering to you on my knees.
Rob Petrillo is a former high school English teacher who now leads a poetry workshop at the University of Southern Maine OLLI program and edits the OLLI art and literature journal. He's been published (and forthcoming) in the Blue Mountain Review, Sky Island Journal, Renaissance Review, Frost Meadow Review, Eunoia Review, Reflections, some local newspapers, and the anthology A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis (Littoral Books, 2019). His first book of poetry will be published by SCE Press in spring 2014.He lives in the present in Westbrook, Maine.