Sheltered on the deck of this new house

             I count all I have given up –

my father’s antique clock, my calico cat,
             the writers who gathered
                           at my white dining table
no longer the rumble of trains
             whir of passing cars
                                        only
                          voices on the upper path.

Flame trees ripple below
            tossing scarlet blossoms.

And if I am lost
            it is because I
                     left behind
                            the red wood door.

* Elizabeth Bishop

Caroline Cottom’s poetry collection, Asylum, was published in 2022. Other poems have appeared in journals such as Main Street Rag, Silk Road, Glassworks, Santa Fe Literary Review, Mandala Journal, and Serving House Journal, among others. She is the former director of the coalition that ended nuclear testing in Nevada and now lives in Greensboro, NC with her husband and two kitties.