I Return Home After You Die
&
I Park the Car in the Wrong Lane

Evalyn Lee

I Return Home After You Die


To moths. I promise Sarah
not to bring them to the funeral.
They live in the lid of Duncan’s
GoldenSource protein powder,
worming in the threads of the cap,

then in the sugar, then the pecans,
but not in the chocolate, but in
the seam at the back of the cupboard,
then in the carpet up the stairs,
then upstairs, in the closets,

in sweaters, suits, skirts, dresses,
all webbed with moth dust.
I take everything off the hanger:
spray, wash, bag it to dry clean.
The dry cleaner tells me there

are more moths than people
in Chiswick. It’s an epidemic.
All the threads in my house—
in my head—are severed by
moths, everywhere, gracious,

terrible, toe-tagged, swollen.
I am writing lists, long lists.
To camouflage myself, I put on
a list. Me, the moth bounced
in from the cold, insulates

my body with microscopic
scales, I modify them, day after
day, terrible, graceful, dust drops
off me. I shed my whole life—
years of it—reproduce and die.

I Park the Car in the Wrong Lane

By the wrong church, under a scaly sky,
full of rain. Love changes direction.

Rain slaps the walls, the stained glass,
heaves hedgerows, stops, cartwheels,

mends, makes do. Always, always a pink
pair of knickers to celebrate life,

even in her coffin—blooming, bowered,
ready to be lifted, a good death.

But please do brush your hair, Betram.
Betram puts his hair into his poem.

Pew heats laughter, her love, honesty:
Darling, she asks, did you get me a ticket?

Do talk over me, I am only dying.
by the church, under a scaly sky, buried.

Evalyn Lee is a former CBS News producer currently living and writing  in London. She has produced television segments for 60 Minutes in New York and the BBC and it was her honor to write for Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Lesley Stahl while covering a wide range of stories, including both Gulf Wars and numerous investigative pieces. Her short stories, essays and poems have appeared in over 80 literary magazines in the US, Ireland and England. She is currently at work on her first poetry collection.