After 9 Days of Cold Rain,
Anything Blooming Trampled

"Still west," you wrote, "with a PO
in hell." A jolt, like the wild pear
exploding hours after Sunday snow.
White crystals, white petals. "On
the tip of the spear" you said. "Hard

to unplug, wired for weeks, dreams
like war games." The green of your
words out jades the geranium. A
Jolt, your words after almost a year.
Not even the spears of pink leaves

I could smell from the road as much
comfort. "Might be in your city,"
darvan, codeine,--warm as the cat
coiled in my knees. "Still west" you
wrote. Then you didn't. War dreams

hang in branches. I think maybe
Jakarta, he wrote me once from there.
The geranium that should have died
spreads thru the sun room. Last year's
oak leaves hang on the branches. The

petals I smelled from the road smashed
into mud. Pink spears gone, the tips
of the spears he wrote about dissolve.
Rain, the branches, pink lace over, I
watch for his screen name. I was over

that. The cherries are over, the nine
days of cold rain aren't, the paper
says, over yet

copyright 2005 Lyn lifshin
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