for weeks i tried to not write about magnolias
i did not want to say, for example, that their tender blooms
had the casual holiness of swans at dusk.
i don’t like comparing flowers to birds at dusk.

they give the misleading impression that nature herself
was in love with us, when i know, they never
intended use to be here. but we are here all the same.
so why not get started immediately?

i mean, belonging to it.

i mean, admire it, weep over it, touch it
over and over. it must disappoint the gods so,
when we are not dazzled by the earth ten times a day
when we forget so many important things.

at least i listen to the nocturnes like a madman

at least i eat up wild poems when i am hungover,
as time creeps along like a damp worm in grass.

at least i recall perfectly that evening when
your hair was sprayed across my lap, looking like the most
beautiful thing that has ever landed there, and

you told me we must write from the deepest depth of
our sympathies.

i’m trying, i’m trying…