~ after Armando Valero, "Flower Girl"
Between the wind and the tree
is the sound
of a train bisecting the day.
Between the eye
and the meadow is the shape
of the bend made in each
finger of grass. It is inaccurate
to speak of ships
passing each other in the night:
we are always
tearing ourselves in half while the body held in place
is always turning toward the station
or the town or looking for rest
rooms, the ticket counter,
the 24-hour drugstore, a clean bed
in the rundown motel.
Between dreaming and rousing, a tingle
in the blood before it wakes;
that relief from being returned.
Even the lily we name star-
gazer films over with orange dust
in the crimson of its throat,
pulling away from the edges bandaged white.