I painted some poppies a year ago,
long-headed, red as the watery sun
that floats in the Bay at evening.
A girl I knew asked for the painting,
and I said yes, it was hers.
Then her silence gulped months away
in great raw swallows.
One day my phone shook in my hand,
and the girl who wanted poppies was there.

By then I was alone, in an abyss,
so I was ready to answer a voice
that drifted down in flurries.
She sang jazz across the city
into my pressed left ear,
and I opened to her
like a drawer full of old knives.

I tried to embrace it
but it wasn't two weeks
until I was in bed,
staring at the wall
where the poppies hung,
long-headed,
red as the watery sun
drowning in the Bay.