When we didn’t move to Philadelphia,
we didn’t buy the hanging flower basket
for the front stoop in Old City.
We didn’t ride bicycles to the market
and fill your basket with Roma tomatoes
and eggplant. You don’t like eggplant.
And you thought Philadelphia would lose
its lure if we had a mailbox, a sconce
in the foyer, stairs that creaked.
We kept our distance and bought a dog
in a small town beside railroad tracks
that haven’t railed trains in forty years.
It’s quiet beneath these stars.
And tonight on our walk, when you asked
if I had any regrets, I had already begun
writing a poem about hanging baskets
and a love that follows us
wherever we have and haven’t lived.
Wes Ward earned his MA in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, Sewanee Theological Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for the Bridport Prize in the UK. Wes teaches English and lives with his wife and children in Pennsylvania.