I pull away with the summer, my eye
loping along the quiet symmetry of telephone
wires.

The backyard trees are blots of ink,
nameless as their birds.

Mulch bags sway in reproach from
the neighbor's garden frames for

the marigold's I let die,
tomatoes never planted,

the acceptance that I could not grow
an apple tree from its core.

My tea cools in the indigo hour and leaves a
faded ring behind. The birds are thin shadows
without faces.