There is now some dread or mourning
I have never heard in your voice.
Steam curls like blacksnake ghosts
from your coffee while your hand hesitates
over the sugar as you speak of lavender ribbons.
You say marigolds, sweet peas, petunias
like the names of unborn children.
I am silent and helpless,
strobe-seared into this pose
of watching myself
reform in relation.
Flesh or water trembles as lights come up in the garden.
For a second we stare into the pool of a fountain
watching each other,
eyes meeting in the reflection.
In our work we cannot mean.
We must enforce the surface tensions,
respond to the tricks of reflected light
without touching the mirror’s silver.