Beneath the lilac, among the daisies, they appear, topknots waving like clown umbrellas in a parade or like a buffet sign Eat Here! Their
low sun a smear of apricot jam I could lick off my thumb, porch boards warm beneath my shoe-loosed feet— how I could succumb
—after Emily Dickinson At the edge of a furrowed field, everything turning over beneath us, how it sways atop the tallest redwood without falling,
How does one say what if without reproach? —Claudia Rankine Remember how sweet the new firs smelled? Their soft spring pompoms pliant and cool