Schoolhouse Lilies

Except when he was watching baseball,

it seemed my father was always outdoors,

tipping his hat to locals, watering

the flowers that focused his retirement.

A Yankees fan for over ninety years,

in mid-September, a week before he died,

my father said the retiring Derek Jeter

was ‘too old to play short. They need home runs!’

My father grew rows of spider flowers

but he called them by their French name, cleomes.

The cleomes were gone by mid-October

and the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs.

Some call oxblood lilies schoolhouse lilies

because when they bloom it’s time to go back.

‘It’s good to have a job,’ my father told me,

as I complained about ever returning.