You can lean through plants here
And see Brooklyn
Through a high kitchen window
Try not to topple the handmade vase

A house of music
And movies — old black-and-whites
And wine
In her room, a futon on the floor,

It took me how long to figure
I wasn’t there to fix
Her computer?
Some men drink liquor
Or golf the time away
But for me life has a certain sorrow
Scenting my fingers still next day

I was young I was old
But I was mostly in between
The music was fine
And the books were fine
The stars were wrong
– but the movies were fine

When I left there, we were smiling
Unashamed and unfulfilled
With not much left to say
On her desk sat a working computer
Still, on her desk sat a working computer
And in my pocket some notes
On the music she’d
Played
Through the night

That we aren’t just
a pinch of food
hanging uneaten on the lip of God,

When
past the hemline,
flesh leaps in dolphin curves,
tracing warm trajectories
beneath synthetic seas.

A swish, a dimple,
Spring’s message is simple:
Bifurcate and beat the curve

Which is why
the oldest phylum tree
still blossoms
in the shadow of cities.