Garland

I'm wearing a garland of May flowers. Ashley, my daughter's partner, took it from her own head and dropped it on mine.

"Now I'm the Queen of May," I said. As to say, "Now I expect some respect."

I'm feeling much better, if not quite right. The weather has turned glorious.

Suddenly western tanagers are everywhere; in our back yard, across the street from Tosi's, in other back yards around Portland, apparently. As well as in Bonta's latest poem.

Brilliant, unstable, love-riddled, May-painted.

I loved the picture of them laughing in the wind in front of their yurt. Celibate and never more than fifteen feet apart. The precision and arbitrariness will distress some people; exactly fifteen, no more and no less. But you learn, you learn. In difficult boundaries exactness is your only hope.

The exact curve of your thigh under my hand. The way my palm rests on the saddle of your ankle, like two parts of a broken fossil finding each other again. The way the careless gray strands of hair fall across your cheek.

Last night a mosquito came in through the open door, and nuzzled my arms, lingering. I flapped my book at her, blew her away from my face. But all I was really doing was saying: bite me someplace I won't notice, dear. You don't have to go away.

Thank you for indulging my self pity! Better now, stronger.