Frankie McMillan

after you have gone/the visions

at first
we leave the lights to burn
throw open the big French doors
to strangers on the street

all night a wind howls, the hens
walk single file up the stairs
this is no more astounding

than
the stories we tell ourselves -
you’re out there still
chasing a rooster back home

tying red roses to the barriére
heads bent, heavy and foolish

here
are our prayers woven
from nests small litanies

love, scattering this way and that