Diorama (woman on a cameo brooch)

Watch for them. Faint as aspen, peeled as birch,

walking the edge of the field raw. Any minute now,

you should start to see remote women flickering in the distance,

their smiles more flickering inside the flickering.

It isn’t hard to find them, but once you do, don’t believe them.

Confessing is just a big part of their drama.

Don’t we all know someone pale and drawn out from coming back 
so many times,

someone worn thin from having to turn into the thread that turns into the rope

that turns into the river that leads her out of the fire she may have started?

It was supposed to be fragrant

and perennial like blossoming.

Their returning.

It was supposed to be copious and make you reach

for a wide jug hoping to catch it all.

Come back, that’s what these women do.

They climb out of oval frames hung on walls.

They use any open page as a little ladder.