At The Passing Of A Lover
(No Doubts)

Blackthorn comes to mind - and my astonishment
jumps up, winces, but no doubt blesses your return

to a sunlight that falls everywhere at once -
I imagine it in a square we visited outside Beijing,

a setting for the sounds of paper flowers in wind.
Remember those three bells for sale by dusty boys?

Today I see you in the sound of a river that will say nothing
for itself, but no doubt dives with you, up

through the natural air shaped by shore birds and hawks.
Remember our trip South?

That afternoon with heavy air? Everything we did,
drunkenness, sensations of white flowers -

the small, blue-black fruits under each one. The liqueurs,
flavored with sloes, taking us on and on

into the trailing-off end of an afternoon like this one.
So now, taking the drink, just one,

I look around at your plants that still bow,
heads and hands that ring your narrow balcony. So it is

I think of my life - slow. Like the sun’s early hour. Soon,
in its good time, something inside me will stand up,

plead for a memory sharp as the noon bell,
memory of your sunlight that fell everywhere.