Regret # Claine Keily 137

When the chrysanthemums
I planted
die outside my doorway
become a symbol of
a mother lost
not to death
but to a madness
made of self love
I wake in
makeshift rental houses
walls painted lilac
smeared with the dirt
of the unknown
families before me
and inside the walls asbestos
then I rise
to ape lessons
and suckle children
who know only how to hate
and I wonder
if they are capable
of dying one day
with a sense of regret
for the love they did not give