At the House of Bougainvilleas
In the yard next to my house,
I often spy a small strange pretty woman
watering her bougainvilleas.
Trails of rosy pink and white intermingle
along one side of her ancient house,
where they drift down to the green
of dewy grass.
Cascading like delicate ballerinas,
with thorns not showing from afar,
they lend a semblance of grace and cheer
to this old house.
Unlike the flowers though,
the thorns inside the house do not stay hidden -
particularly when night arrives.
Sometimes I have seen the woman
snipping the stems of her pretty flowers.
She lowers her face, telling me, when I greet her,
“No speak English.”
Though she tries to disguise it,
I know from the bruises I see on her arms
what must be hiding behind the large sunglasses she wears.
I imagine she gathers her bougainvilleas
to brighten the sadness of her situation.
I picture the flowers in a vase sitting on the rustic table
of a dining room I have never seen,
but a room which must be as immaculate
as the flower garden she keeps behind her house.
Nightly the thorns of the house manifest themselves
in the form of monstrous shouting from the brute who lives within.
Today I walk over to the strange neighbor lady’s bougainvilleas.
They are wilting, and I realize I have not seen her watering them
since several days ago.
The hideous screams from the house, as I recall,
have also recently ceased.
I peer over the fence of that couple’s house
and notice a plot of freshly dug dirt.
Has the little lady planted a new flower bed?
As I contemplate this,
a new thought – much darker than bright bougainvilleas -
pricks my mind.
April 7, 2019
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