a butterfly wanders by chance into a vault.
An ocean spread with insistence
spreads gentle into every corner.
Left in water: an impression
silent as a cliff takes wing.
Sink against the shape of breath
of time before a place closes.
Like someone I was supposed to meet:
a statue of Venus in the garden
under the arbor leans toward the pond.
In an overgrowth of green
ground cover like grass but not grass,
in hard water spots
on the shower door
that resemble a snowstorm—
the cure in what
I fail to scrub away.
In my coffee grounds:
a mountain landscape.
This tender field; this grassy patch
a scoop of soil between us.
This seed this tree this meadow
and sky lacking nothing.
In the window
someone moving inside.
At night the orange grove
like a black wall.
Meanwhile
in the mountains
confessions of spring
and the butterflies
fear to move,
lest the vision vanish.
