That rose, so pendulant and yellow, she glimpsed outside the kitchen window wasn’t from the slip her mother sent her with across the ocean,
Too cold to take the geraniums outside. Today I tried to air the wet alpaca sweater. It froze to rigor mortis in minutes, icicles
Late-May, and it’s safe at last here in Connecticut to plant impatiens, my wife unloading flats of them, red and white by the mailbox,
The gardener is mad, bowler askew, black brim casting shadows like knotty fingers plunging Earth. Worms divide, squirm into points: stars, underground light. Seeds