florence


i'd love to have
a photograph.

round town, rapt fat,
with an infant-blanket;
that sky, soft as cotton swabs,
was not across the whole bubble;
only brief attention spans; those
telephone poles & lamp posts
—amusing nightlights—too
remote for influence; they
were curling fingers, playing
against melting pastels:
traditional blue, pink,
yellow; turn purple,
peach then orange;
errant, on
carnations.
oh rosy our
powder; but,
largely articulate. yet
a stodgy, victorian taste;
quaint habit for abstinence;
and, equate fakes to antique
when the all-benevolent color
of fresh, pale efflorescence was
—in these dwindling, twiggy trees—

spring.