I give thanks to You for all of this jumble of life, in which
      I am drowning since time immemorial helplessly in dead
                                                                                                           earnest

Like tents before a storm golden cloaks ripple
a flood of hot scarlet exposes chests and feet

The dew drops from the white magnolia tree, same as the last year.
She will stand by the window, calmer than in winter.
Caught by the scent of spring, she will bring stolen branches

The onion is frost
shut in and poor.
Frost of your days

Coffee wakes you from that sleep-bruised face,
fraggles your nerves
till they push you out into the day, into the twitch.

It was only a Daisy,
the kind sold by coupon off the backs of comic books:
Gee Dad it’s a Daisy! He grins up at his father

I took this from him and won’t give it back, the idea
that paths in the woods, paths worn or chopped,
that in their coming and going, how they’re revealed

Looking at the picture used in the obituary,
I’d peg your Pops as a secret admirer
of Ferraris, too smart to own one but the red dream

I can hear him not wanting to die with fiberoptic
clarity. The gun in his lap has other
thoughts but won't get on the phone. This

Come with me to buy a linden tree, stopping first
at the bank, for I need a loan to buy a linden tree.