The child, the miniature

old person waiting in her was worry.

An aloneness, all that

sitting in a tree thinking

the tree knew her thoughts.

Walking home, just walking like that…

A kind of radar. It does ache,

scanning the waters Is

turning to Was turned to who can recall that far

the inch-by-inch days of school.

What got learned piled up or it morphed

to the next thing and left behind

a little smoke.

There are children with

no child inside. But here’s a bird for you, says Spring,

brought back from the dead of

snow and ice. Plus flowers, the first blue (sweet

low-to-the-ground vinca), first yellow

(forsythia’s wild reach every which way).

And those hearts in the garden again, their red

and their white bleed so meticulously

minting sorrow—classic, ridiculous, too many—

one might think them fake, stamped out in some factory

an ocean away, two continents. A good third of

the workers underage, trying so hard.