Even Now

Still I try to remember when you first caught

fire, the barely visible flames about shoulders and arms

accentuating everything you touched, and I first saw

through words into their origins and hearts. I watched

you reach for a glass dissolving in air, while your

sight tore holes in an April world drowning

in rain and flowers. We walked through a park where

you stuck your hand in a young retriever's mouth, feeling

the hot pink gums and new teeth, while a little girl

wearing a ladybug cape swooped, singing over the grass

as bees droned is, is over the jonquils. We drove

to the country and walked through fields and meadows

and stood beneath an orchard's new gauze where you

talked of the past, picking chunks of time like invisible

fruit, and I could feel the rivers and trees engrave us.

We entered a half-built house, flooded with sky, and you

said, "There, there and there bodies will blossom."

I remember how it began to rain but you did not get

wet. How the fragrant wood smelled like a ripening fruit.

The sun came out as the evening grew long, and where

you lay down in the field to sleep there was only a red glow

resembling coals in a fire, a warmth I can feel, even now.