THE OLD FLAME
MyoId flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine
j
it was still
on top of its hill- ,
now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door;
Old Glory
with thirteen stars
hung on a pole; the clapboard
was old-red-schoolhouse-red.
Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.
A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!
No one saw your ghostly
imaginary lover
stare through the window,
and tighten
the scarf at
his
throat.
Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.
