Pacing the garden,
waiting for dusk.
We’re still unmarred
by our ordinary joy,
the asphalt wall
retaining heat.
A canticle round
from the apple trees,
picked by fat jays
who leap, squabble,
ousting burnt leaves
in perfect chorus.
Still the age
when change is held
by a flush of colored light:
the vibrant sign
in the orchard;
a deepening line that I love
beside your mouth;
the early creases
on my body. Touch
in a fierce horizon,
and the light itself
a cloudbank, scrim
and startled refraction.
A sort of kindness
in how brief it is,
the searing
of this first season.
A spider curls its filament
in the arbor. We settle,
shift, ignite.
-Nina Palisano