Proofs for Spring
I.
Descending frost to freshet, vernal-laved
deluging—Had we empty hands we’d shred
delphiniums and let the petals (frayed,
depleted), hard perfume the waterbed,
deliver springtide headlong/headfirst, helmed
departures. On our arms, mosquitoes, oiled:
DEET-cloaked, and dying with a hum. Exhumed
dead bulbs and planted crocuses—we halved
dealt land—we have to deal with all this hulled
denuded land—we had our hands all weighed.
II.
De Kooning’s piece: The Springs—a woman paused,
described the painting as “uniquely formed.”
Defying order, oiled and masking-taped,
decay of black across the center, hued
degrees of noise and burn and red—indeed,
demotic speech can’t do it justice—(failed)
demanding combing of the OED.
III.
December found us wanting, found us bed-
ded dawn by dawn, and found ourselves embed-
ded arm to arm. Slow bloom of spring the red-
dening the beads of berries. We are wed-
ded by a line of loss. I am unwed-
ded to the slope. What thaw what we have shred-
ded showed us what: You passed, and something stopped.
IV.
Deliver this to me when spring has waxed:
desalinate the pond for koi (a breed
deserving of it, like Kohakus—scaled
delightfully in spots of white and red),
deliver all the packages I’ve piled,
defrost the cherries—(for a glaze? or baked?),
design a way to keep the windows barred
(defending me from all the gnats), start forced
decathlon training at the school’s Phys. Ed.
department—on that note, eat nothing fried.
Deactivate the heater. Keep room aired.
Deny I kept the room so hot, hell-poled.
Depopulate the basement of all webbed,
defiling things. Go through my laptop, speed-
delete all bitter winter writings penned.
Declare my love along the woodnote ebbed.
V.
Dehisce your lips. You try a smile, dent-lipped,
depressed. What were you what overlapped,
developing and moving green through curved
deciduous viburnum, corymb-daubed.
Delirium, there, quicken me what seemed
de trop was seething at the throat, hard-meshed.
Despite this, stretch of stars, we never flinched,
demurred to nothing said. Wind eddied, died.
Define what happened, happenstance? A shared
detente? The unshaped thoughts the heart unhasped?
