I

It’s slippery, the little by little you’re left with.
thread of a peacock in profile
glimpsed on a chimney,
the field, all violet, where he found me,
unravelling
to that grainy black and white,
that theft

sleight of hand

of him interrupting what I was, alone,
wading in the count of
fuchsia, pepper, and oak trees

the echo

plum-orchid, azalea

of her unstrung nouns

I’d been at it, stitching the green
ongoing lines exactly, mapping the slackness
of stem and first fruit, holding
magnolia to form while I waited for
the voice of