I.

The pots on my windowsill catch light

along their edges

here and there, the fragile spear

of a chive jutting up, a frill of parsley—

small alchemy. It is easy to see,

but not to understand

the finite step, from the windowsill

into spring morning, curb to the bare

road with its scuttle of leaves, in it

that something “eternal”—

You do not remember the shock

of open eyes, or its before.

Only the accumulating detail— a song

in a room with a bright blue carpet, the woman in yellow,

her curly black hair, the few soft hairs at the nape of your own neck, a spill of milk,

the sun filling a window as you wait for darkness to appear.

II.

A tug on the sole of your shoe,

something remembers being barefoot

and turning cartwheels breathlessly on the grass.

The body speaks louder and learns to insist

on shapes precise to meaning, a tree

is a tree.

III.

In the dream, the moment stutters on its brink, becoming and becoming and—

Do not depart as your shadow came,

the one by one surrender of each

leaf folding back into bud.