Tell me not to write about death and
my mind goes directly to three friends

diagnosed with cancer. One breast,
one bowel, one mystery. Misery, it blows

through the room like an errant curtain
off its rod, barks its messages in the dark

like a dog on fire. Then it dies. This time
last year the lindens were about to bloom

and everyone was a panic. When they lost
the will to hold it in any longer the street

was a riot of honeysuckle and melon.
Abandoned by sense, I looted entire limbs

and draped them throughout my house.
It must have looked like a funeral

no one attended. I believed then I could
savor my way out of the news of the world.

Sit flower-drunk long enough you come
close to becoming one. I reeked and

smoked. I opened the door and the outside 
didn’t recognize me. But unlike the tree

I remain unrooted. I mask the lack of pith
and terra with a metastasis of pleasure.

Now, a year past, my cellular structure
is chloroplast and muted. My blood

zooms like rush hour traffic. I am
no better and no worse than ever.

April still brings rain, and the future is
a canopy of promise and cloud cover.