William Cordeiro
Meeting Place
A cool wind flatters every petal open;
smeared pollen-glop unsettles on the pond.
The moon’s lopsided slather rankles feverwort,
and I am prefaced by unguarded fields—
a rendezvous beyond parched hills and gaud
where leaves parse shadows as their colors prism.
Old scars betrayed in gnarled bark still join
remaining letters of each lover’s name
with luckless ones who ventured to this clearing.
I wait here near the meadow, sedge grass licking
at my heels. A prison’s aimless, wind-tossed limbs:
the loins of trees will bare themselves come fall.
While disco-balls of seed-heads go to waste,
I taste the air’s bright mist. I’m quickened, young.
The crick now spilling thick on stony runnels,
I look through margins whether others lurk.
Sometimes the far wolves howl. Sometimes
a nestled barn owl questions who I am.
I listen—listen where the glimmers stir
as crickets fiddle and the summer wanes.
