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.