• To eat the first mango of Spring,
    we walked to the park,
    escorted by excited blossoms at our feet
    and quivering blue weather ahead.

    There, sitting on the daisy-speckled grass,
    surrounded by trees crowned with misty green
    and my teeth sunk in mango,
    you discovered a white hair on my head.

    On my head,
    it had been
    stripped, starved, it had
    curled into
    itself, hideous,
    ashamed,
    lonely and strange
    and new.

    At length, the wind carried it away
    to a day stretching longer and brighter
    than the last,
    for now.


    I looked to the deepening folds
    of your smile. I looked to your eyes
    through the distant years, fading slowly
    with my reflection.

    I looked down to the lines
    gathering on your hand
    resting on my hand.

    Spring burst itself around me, then,
    warm and tremulous
    and ancient.