Poem for Grown Children

In a poem I love, the husband slices open
a pepper to find a church,

but here at the sink I’ve found a house, and
inside the rattling seeds of a chandelier.

It doesn’t matter. My husband is too by himself
in the hospital, and in our home at the window I stand

alone for the first time in almost thirty years. Then,
he’d rushed out into the dark, summoned to

his father’s deathbed. But I wasn’t really alone.
My toddler son slept, his mouth slightly open

and red and wet inside, like a fledgling’s;
my daughter grew within me, close

as a locket on a chain. When my husband returned,
I remember he talked of the rattle. The death rattle.

The children are now inside their own homes,
asleep, curled around their beloveds. But all so young

yet, they do not think we will ever die.
In their garden beds, if they are dreaming of seeds

and light, they are dreaming of little blazes
growing hotter. They are not dreaming of wind

and flickering. And, certainly, they are not
dreaming of smoke.