Picket Fences

 The voices float past

Like the fading rays of light from long dead star:

I tell you I want kids, and a house

With a white picket fence

And a tree swing.

You laugh and say you’d rather die.

And I can’t tell if it’s gratitude or regret that tightens my throat,

And burns my eyes,

But surely it’s some measure of each.

For here I am, painting the fence,

Outside a house

Overflowing

With everything I ever longed for.

And these voices have come only to whisper

That you, too, have gotten your wish.