It begins as a growth on your breastplate, round
and red like a wound from a small caliber gun.
It's life in America as you wait those anxious days
until the unfolding. Yet the evenings are forceful,
so full of life—physical in their expressed delight
and profoundly solid. It's two weeks prior to spring
and a couple bulbs start into bloom. You hope
that rain won't muddy them, and continue to notice
a life mostly protracted from true, astral affiliations.
It's certainly clear: you can hope; you can desire.
You can weed in a rain slicker. What the narcissus bear
may be obstructed by weather, torn, or held briefly
in esteem.
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