The first time I lingered in the desert of a Rothko exhibit was when I found you for ice cream after.

You, my wedge. My up-arrow. A pigeon on the wire. You’re the control character in the family. This is a love song for you. The chevron and basket weave. Man on horse with shiny garb? I distrust the categories we fall into by other people.

It is easy to wake up in the morning as a traffic reporter. You in the kitchen opening a can of mushroom soup. How do I walk over to you with the face I put on after? How: the difference between naval-gazing and shameless self-promotion lie out in the suburban lawn together.

She was certain that this morning as she stepped out of the apartment there would be flowers on the doorstep crushed by rain. She had come to believe that thoughtfulness has only measured as much, and at least the flowers would be there the next day to reflect this. What surprised her more was finding the leftover puttanesca and lilacs in a jar steaming from the sun falling through the kitchen. She had already forgotten. Her night of half-sleep was eclipsed by his leaving. On her way out she accepted that what was there shows for what was had.

*

She got into her white Corolla to cross town to work, forgetting something. There was always something to be forgotten, whether taking the laundry off the line, her vitamins, the money order she again hadn’t yet posted. He would think of these things and remind her as they drove and were mostly quiet together. But now she looked to her right beyond the empty passenger seat, the river shuddering from rain, the wet steel of the bridge and faces of bikers. What she liked most about driving to work was this time of light through the clouds, the scatter, the musk and skirt of change in season, from a quiet one to one that isn’t. What it is like to reflect over only-partially lost things.

*

As the years passed, she had grown to believe and encounter more often, and deeply, that there is no wholeness yet in beginnings, and not to be disappointed. The tulips in the neighbors’ yard would open and close and soon wither away, the air thinning out, the unpredictability in transitioning weather. For the last week every day was the same—she would walk around the apartment complex to her car and see them there. Daffodils against the ground, their yellow and white faces flat on the cement or the soil. Last week the green stalks were ripe and tall, leaning up. The rest of the day she would have their image in her mind beside the refrain of a song she heard while standing in Macy’s contemplating bed sheets. She had their image in her mind when she raised her arms for him to remove her white blouse. It had been months. His skin felt softer than she remembered, and she was glad, after all, that their time apart could remind her of what she liked the best.

*

On her morning drive alone she let her mind drift, wondering what he was doing at the airport, even though she knew full well from their flights together. She thought about picking up a trashy magazine and walking to the cemetery to read it after work for the hour the sun was still out. She liked to wander through the decorum, the grey and unexpected color. The day had not yet begun, and she was already thinking of after. She was reminded of why she didn’t wake to say anything as he left. The orchards on her way into the next town over were now starting to burst. Just last week the rows hung bare beside the interstate, realizing how it would all be changed soon.

driving in the rain distracted by a dress in the window

a half hour now is such short time

after Ocyrhoe

my fate has found / forbidden speech / if only speech / were speech and stones were stones / if language were leaves / a language of trees / the green word breathes / to heal the ill / inside my breast / no knees would break to dirge and done / yet swift my flow / I have learned the art / to draw the gods and guide their wrath / by way of speech / my soul to moss / my father’s art / his half / my whole / this fate repeats / art turned to dark / unto the field that opens up / across my face / that meets this grass / I call my feast / and scumble through the won whole lot / a mount affair / what once was words / slurred to the touch / my fingers fused / enwrapped in horns / my hair hung loose / across the hills / my wispy word to whinny broad / rings clear and true / but blurred and lost / from speech turned bray / hands turned to hooves / a new percussion / bygone incantations / these griefs unhealed / my silence rues

Margaret Mead is credited with the pluralization of the term “semiotics.”

In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem.