glossy birds pluck crumbs from the grass
swirled like oil spills.
you and i sit lasciviously
stroking petals outside the library.
soon we are going to fall away into our different summers,
our different years, will forget this plunk-
of-butt sidewalk grunt
into the veined throat
of the purple flower,
slender as the neck of a lynx, smelling of vanilla,
spreading its pollen on your hand, your hair,
downy, tear-inducing dream-
residue
touching your sticky lips and cravat
soaked in dew.
legs crossed I dreamed I had buried you
in the guts of Rome
under the heaving Hippodrome,
I shook my head, the magnolias dropped
in spicy drifts
under the buzzard-clear hot, haze-
drenched sky.