That wasn't autobiographical, I hasten to add,
but the next two are.
This is about my father.
"Ghost of a Garden."
Sometimes I discover I have gone down stairs, crossed the grass
and found myself in here.
The tool shed caught in a lash of brambles,
bind weed, and tall ivied trees like pipe cleaners.
It looks out vacantly on a garden run to seed.
The lost tennis court, grown over benches, a sunken barbecue
snagged with blown roses.
The courtyard walls are full of holes.
The swallows try to sew in and out of them like open doors.
In the corner of the shed my father is weeping and I cannot
help him because he is dead.