Wild petunias slowly go
blind and a starched nurse
races to your bed to find
your quick hawk gaze
fixed on a blue mahoe branchscraping the louvre glass,
its cellophane sound blurs
a gesture of recoil or beckon
that transmits the ginger
lily’s rage and the coralixora’s incandescent grief
beyond my survivor’s guilt.
No snow today, none
yesterday, no snow ever
on the jacaranda, sly treewhitewashed violet antic
bells falling with stark
provincial pride from
the sky’s washed-out
purple, cut up motion-captureflorets still as yesterday.
I grasp at your formal
and arcane joy: then sings
my soul, my saviour…
that dhoti language death todaybrings to buttress the heart
against further misgivings.
