{"id":413,"date":"2025-11-16T21:12:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T21:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=413"},"modified":"2025-11-18T00:27:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T00:27:55","slug":"conditional","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/poetry\/conditional\/","title":{"rendered":"Conditional"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Carrigan<\/span><\/p>\n

If the flowers bloom early this year,<\/span><\/p>\n

then maybe you never actually were here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were never actually here<\/span><\/p>\n

in the yard, in the vanishing snow.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The vanishing snow didn\u2019t reveal your bones, <\/span><\/p>\n

didn\u2019t unveil the murder weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The murder weapon fell into the creek<\/span><\/p>\n

with you, carried to the sea with a sigh.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With a sigh, I watch the flowers return,<\/span><\/p>\n

each bud\u2019s birth a new promise of decay.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A new promise of decay starts each time<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember you were once here.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were once here, but left too soon, <\/span><\/p>\n

so the flowers bloom early this year.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nAlex Carrigan If the flowers bloom early this year, then maybe you never actually were here.   You were never…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “Conditional”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"parent":322,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-413","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/413\/revisions\/415"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}