These shower-fed lilacs of April
for seasons now have bloomed as ghosts
of thoughts I used to listen to.
Sun-lit, they glisten in certain purplish
scents and bluish hues. More so now
at night when, flecked with dew, all thoughts
are swept away but those of bullets and blood.
April’s now that month in Springfield,
Illinois, when I join the lank man who treads
the ground around the old courthouse door,
a shadowy spirit I’d come to know
from history books: lean and always
in a dark suit with that peculiar top hat,
he roamed about his homestead and up
and down the town. Restless, we walk
the two of us, gliding side by side, and silent
as midnight. Our only disturbance
in the air a slight breeze of lilac-thick scent.
