Tuscan Romance
In Arezzo, beneath the Persian cypress, my wishbone dandelion:
I’m here only to break your spine, now
pinched between my two fingers. Your web of seeds moves with every
tug, a trembling net. Underneath, your black bud eye.
Your skin of seed-heads, like woven white lace,
in your perfect sphere, are easily pulled apart
by wind, by breath, by movement, by weight of my finger
crushing your soft head. Your bones are scattered in grass,
the femur of my first next to your ribs, and in
your shallow grave, you take from me a chapel’s pale gabled roof,
with the march of percussional tin cans on brass asphalt.
But in the beach town of Ravenna, your parachute seed lands on my sleeve,
the top puffed in stitched satin, the heart a rice grain.
Your torn breath followed me, turning my face something blue.