The Rhododendron

for Suzy—“let’s be famous lovers”

sunlight thru an open door,

crimson blooms swelling to burst:

who can say

what love is? you take a friend

in hand & roar down blind road after blind road

wandering thru private rooms

in each other’s hearts, sailing thru whole histories

of pain & rage to find a quiet morning,

dew on the laurel leaves. love is not

in the eyes, in the heart, in the entryways

& hotspots of flesh, in heavy breathing—love cannot be

contained in soft arias

whispered at dawn—it is neither two together

nor apart: the eye

is in the hand, the heart in the eye,

the song exhaled & inhaled

& suddenly your dreams fill rooms where others

pace & sing softly of what you were—

O love,

steady rain on the city of the dead,

teardrop on a granite peak, clear day,

angel ghosts circling

the flowering black oak in every long-gone summer

night full of thunder,

sunlight thru an open door,

crimson blooms swelling to burst.