Strawberry Fields

We walk along the streets you married long ago.
The memory sold by shouting sidewalk vendors
is the picture of your face.
A face still replenishing belief
is on a vagrant's dirty T-shirt.
And he too lives passively,
vicariously
surrenders control to those
around him.
He too lashes out
and disappoints.
Yet who here is the martyr?
Who among us is missed?
Your doorway swallows us inside out
leaving us longing ...
hollow, where you had lived,
yet still you feed us back to ourselves
like a mother bird,
who believes in the myth
you perpetuated.
We took a wrong turn,
didn’t we …
We still believe …
as all your wobbling toddlers inspect the flowers
that always accessorize your memorial.
You're in the fatness of their curious little fingers,
and in each strawberry blossom every spring.