Fern moods flicker within this rain’s haughty coven—

in its strange calls to sleep and mosquitos,

and to the thoughtless trillium—

and I’m playing No Regrets on my fingers

with an unbroken and forgetful studiousness.

(If whispers peg me a god’s monster, ah, well.)

This time I’m turning my face forward toward

the green volcanoes building in the trees,

whose scheduled dimpled buds will duly jolt me.

We’re half a dozen months from apples again, which

doesn’t matter to the hot stars that trail their cold light, yawn,

dock beside the house—true and bored—unmistakenly—

in unquested silence. I open my mind and trade out

their strung-up nonchalance for waterfalls of sunshine,

for clay pots of basil, cilantro, for barrelsful of the red fruit.