Time is not a stream; as in China,
it is a waterfall in a weightless
world, a constant cascade upwards
 
that bears you aloft till lungs
hold a last swell in the stratosphere
& you arise new in that pure
airlessness. It happens over again.

You may lay on your snoring
stranger a wreath of heather, dear;
& that will be all right. But,
you may leave one mug too many

on the counter, as if the evening
were a phrase in need of an ellipsis
& the day after could only end
with a period. Wild carrot leaf is

pressed between these pages,
heirloom passed from self to self.
Could it have been blue, then,
with umbels resembling morning

climbing through open lattices
& past hoary flora to drag its silk
dress up the stairs, to go strew
feathers over your kitchen table?

Perhaps. Neither of us can say
whether this half-open door allows
chicory to spring through it
from the next house, nor whether
 
that gust would falter at the strands
fallen across your face so that
I could write this poem for another.