Winter Garden

The Winter played a trick at my expense,
seeing that I am in love
and have been so, for so long--
it scorned my heart for its impossible longing,
and sent out-of-season blooms,
purple and purposeful
to destroy what I cherish most.

At my doorway, lilacs--
guardians late in arriving, My Love having already come
with kindness and claim.

Vexed, the Winter spread iris across the morning,
and set money to buy them in my hand;
but my hand set itself to weaving my beloved's name
into a pattern of desire and rhyme.

The Winter called me a fool,
and sent me a chill beyond all warming,
made from the distance between My Love's skin and mine.
Within it, were folded sly inducements--
snapdragons to find out liars,
asters for the things that fade and die;
pansies to mark the path by which the lost love leaves,
and alyssum as cure for folly
and wounds of every kind.

None of this could break my devotion,
so the Winter showed me bulbs from purple tulips
planted by another hand to rise in Spring
around My Love, to please and keep her--
and a blue clematis
to bind the sting.
_______

lilacs--love's first emotions
iris--wealth, prosperity, fortune
snapdragons--deception
asters--something delicate and dainty
pansies--remembrance
alyssum--treatment for the bite of rabid animals
purple tulip--royalty

 

Feng Shui For Single Girls

The window is all there is--
the room could be on fire behind me,
all unknown.

I have books, thick as starlings at sunset--
some have tiny bones made from love poems;
that is what I've been told.

I'm so beautiful, and so stupid.
I give coins to babies, formulae to retardates.
I stay by my window like a moondog,
offering the airy currents my kiss.

I wait for you by the window,
pretty and useless, a song in a language no one can sing.
I am sister to the vase, the ring removed, and the window I love,
because we are all open, and empty, like this.
_______