I’ve always been encouraged, / DANCE!  / Why? And for who? Is there anything to dance for? / I heard the magpies singing, early AM hours; it must be spring again.

A droning like miniature chainsaws / Is it the solar converter? /

No, it’s bees in the maple / A great disruption is coming

There was this light in her eyes as she said it, / ‘As a kid, I remember finding out deserts are cold places.’

Her eye rolls / to the limit of the / socket. A curl kisses / the slope of her / brow. Bernini’s too / smoothed it so / that the museum / lights give it the sheen/ of a peeled egg. I tumble

There are no lemons here like in the cartoons. / But Old Orange Tree sits out the back, surrounded / by knee-high grass, tins – we think it’s perfect.

lurching out / from the split wooden pot we thought / would contain it

Your home in my chest became / the imaginary world beneath / childhood blankets / I tucked myself away in.

New green stems didn’t snap away, / they bent soft like a baby's arms