It’s not enough to talk to plants
you also have to listen. And day after day
it’s the same petty complaints and trivial gossip:

One morning I awoke
to a dead pigeon on the roof
of the building next to mine,

“Where is he—you know, the . . . one?”
my ninety-year-old friend asked
and I knew that she meant her son—

Afterwards I said the palm tree was like a snake
coiling around the delicate outdoor bannister
but Janette said like a swan courting a swan.

The door. If you pull it it’s heavy; if you
push it it’s hard. 

Bands of distracted emotions snap getting
wider as daytime colors sink and roll on their
sides. 

Such a flow of language!

She is a neighbor too,
and I am getting there

It’s a socket—I don’t know how,
but you soon learn to count millions into that province

To no longer perform in broad daylight,
the apple's a radish for it,
the winter chill a living thing.