Improv: Marks' "House with a Bed of Tulips"

To the photo of her crow-haired father,
three years ago when he still took his own
shits, when neither you nor your forgetful mother
had to dress him, I said, keep it.

You must fill this album with things that don't exist,

it's in the contract, the wine's fine print,
the locked door and deal closing,

like your mother's yearbook photo with her braces,

brother, now dead, plunging his face into the night
air, chickenhouse teeth catching bugs. Your tulips
were never watered, I say, casting off the one
of your house before the flood. Your former husband
and you--or rather, more poignantly, the ex--
standing side by side before he blew
his brains out in the hospital parking lot,
sends the jolt of a cringe down my spine.