after Água Viva

 

from it i hear 

Garden strum its xylophone 

ribs, grapevine flowers beating 

early on wax handles, mottled galaxy 

of magenta springs. 

 

from it the instants 

of fawning cicadas, strawberry bugs, 

broiling baccate life; and i too

am the instant, the smell of sound 

on my skin, baby breaths in slow dreams, 

i dare to not mean meaning.

 

from it a newness

rinses the vague fruits of distant fears.

age is beautiful, shocking, a seed to be shucked

from strawberry jam. i ask myself

if seasons are deceptions, if nothing still rules nothing

in crystalline heat. i was blunt and spilled 

over my ferric rims, 

drank the gashed grapes off garden granite

as my last protest. 

 

let me be the soft instant,

breathed in instants

 

Garden hums.