her half birthday (deathday?)

i finally took the snowflakes down,
decals i splattered all over our windows
to add signs of her, everywhere

i hung them on her birthday
as december plowed through
but when spring knocked
i could not peel them off

something about june, though
nudged me into submission,
the flowers didn’t seem quite so angry yesterday

but without my realizing it
i shed the house of those reminders on her half birthday (deathday?), june 4

and now i feel sad and guilty
and unsure what to do about these nice clean walls

i take a drive to pick up henry and james from daycare
and when i get back
i log onto Amazon Prime
and order more snowflake decals