Snowing now
that tacky
New England snow,
redressing
even the scrawniest oak.
There’s a red bird
flicking the rhododendron
and I wonder if
that bird knows
it’s beautiful—
nothing more than
resting
on a branch.
Still you sleep,
the scars on your breast
less purple now—
ah, but you, there—
the time
we kissed
on Fifth Avenue,
saying yes
this is how our
story begins—
you bent your neck
forward,
hair smelling
of ash—
that sigh as you
turn in your sleep away
from where I watch you—
this much but only so—
hand that has touched me
ten thousand times—
blue-veined
and thriving against
this darkness
and I
who have come
so broken—
your shoulder
in what moonlight
remains after
morning, the dark
matted strands
of hair, your breathing
hurried—
what dream
has put you here?
A sparrow sings
because no one cares—
for you are not
cardinal, not
breath-taking flash
but steadfast
with fine-boned love—
and see, the bird
has vanished—
the snow turns rain in the light
but still
after all this everything—
each gust accountable,
in the land
that’s in my heart
and how far I have wandered,
and I will not touch you
and I will go knowing
beneath clabbered snow
a green world readied—
for the delicate and the lordly
rise from the same house.