This time of year
hundreds of pale yellow
butterflies descend upon
the early purple thistle
...
You settle into your chaise lounge,
absorbed in a Silhouette romance.
The heroine is chaste,
...
Maybe old emotions
are not like ashes,
but more like embers,
still pulsating with fire
...
They were the masculine scents of choice
in the 1960s, when the regulation white shirts
and diagonal stripe ties
that proliferated in the office
...
She drives 100 miles in sleet and ice
to the hospice where she works
because she knows that Mrs. Greene
is in the last stages of lung cancer.
...
He resisted it,
nostalgia.
He longed to be
here now,
...
And here is where
I store the flour and rice.
And here the silverware.
Here the bread, slice by slice.
...
Roses are blue,
violets are red.
Sugar is bitter,
or sour instead.
...
And let’s not forget that week
in Isla Mujeres
when you were inebriated
with tropical sunsets
...
The day finally came.
The island was part
of a sheltered archipelago
off the coast of Greece,
...