Tendril

& just the vermillion

flicker of cannas near the pane.

Our bodies too, plateaued;

my hole, newly bloomless.

Outdoors, further out, a wren

winnows, the mesquite

on whose yielding limbs the all-

but-tender fowl rests

flexes, in cold as in darkness . . .

Time, like desire, expands too—

no? My lover, nodding gently,

shakes the leaves, &

A little softer. A little softer now—

A little softer, for what’s been torn.