We were there to sand floors and scrub tiles,

preparing the house for the new bride,

your sister gleaning some kind of country harvest

from the trick of a kind smile. I ran wild,

beguiled by the pollen-thickened air,

nasturian wildernesses climbing into tall rooms,

the hot echo of sunlight.

 

In the garden a sundial told the weather,

and at night a boy waiting in shadow

led me beneath the limes

to the stream buried in forget-me-nots,

the muddy banks of drowning.

If you looked closely,

a face smiled from the shallows,

trembling with hope in the cold current,

the child unborn of the marriage never to happen.