Great Blue Heron

Skinflint: I wrote this following the death of a family friend, who swallowed a bottle of pills after a battle with alcoholism that left him incontinent and unable to walk. He owned my mother's house and charged her suspiciously low rent for over a decade, which had its trade offs: he never repaired anything, and by the time he died, the upper story of our house was a ruin of leaks, water stains, and collapsing tiles. His death resulted in our eviction. Garden: I once heard someone say Adam and Eve were the first nation state, with Eve playing the role of the governed, the substrate upon which everything is built. The woman this poem concerns—who is family--first married a bigamist and then an abuser.