Lento -- Lisa Bourbeau

No less than swan song, or long-stemmed
shadowglide the plucked

of ever-after blossom,
fragile as a cockleshell...

And the prickly thought-bramble parts,
unnoticed. Entrance

or exit? The white voice of distant
rye grass, oars

motionless in answer, and
between legs of crickets,

tremorspill past root-tongue
- this: what is seen as

silent, without outline, dust
become a reach into crescendo,

the picked-apart seam of
quickened heartbeat

or who was I to you
in the presence of crows

and blackberries. Or nails.