Cherry plums suck a week’s soak, 
overnight they explode into the scenery of before 
your touch. The curtains open on the end of our past. 
Pink trumpets on the vines bare to the hummingbirds. 
Butterflies unclasp from the purse of their couplings, they 
light and open on the doubled hands of eucalyptus fronds. 
They sip from the pistils for seven generations that bear 
them through another tongue as the first year of our 
punishing mathematic begins clicking the calendar 
forward. They land like seasoned rocks on the 
decks of the cliffs. They take another turn 
on the spiral of life where the blossoms 
blush & pale in a day of dirty dawn 
where the ghost of you webs 
your limbs through branches 
of cherry plum. Rare bird, 
extinct color, you stay in 
my dreams in x-ray. In 
rerun, the bone of you 
stripping sweethearts 
folds and layers the 
shedding petals of 
my grief into a 
decayed holo- 
gram—my 
for ever 
empty 
art.