Via Negativa

Where do they all go, the letters 
        and cards that were written 

and mailed but never arrived at their 
        destinations, or got returned to 

their senders? Sometimes the moon 
       looks like the flap of a creased 

envelope— whatever message or instruction
       it bore has slipped into its dark 

pocket. Now it is swimming so far out 
       at sea, to a country not yet discovered.

Flourishing in the same pot,
each green heart is a poem
working against the same
constraints.

There is no need
for rhyme or meter. Time
and space are endless- 
ness enough. 

When we can, we like to sleep in 
on weekends. For brunch, we make 

coffee the slow-pour way. It feels 
luxurious just to have eggs, bread, 

papaya cut into squares and laced
with honey and citrus. In our other 

lives, our mothers and grandmothers 
were up before the leaves of the chayote 

unfurled out of the cold. In our other 
lives, they calculated expense vs. need 

vs. desire; they boiled rather than fried, 
mended until a thing fell to pieces from 

the mending. This morning, though the world 
doesn't lack for terrible news, I changed 

pillowcases shiny with oil from our heads, sheets 
humid from the island shapes we rocked into place 

through the night. Envelopes lie on the counter
demanding what we must pay and by when, how much  

we still owe in order to lie under a ceiling the color 
of eggshells. Leaving a cafe a few months ago, I pinched

a sprig of sambac— Arabian jasmine— from bushes massed 
by the entrance. The dream of its scent plucked 

at my sleeve, ghost flower even now, its roots waving 
in water until I can marry it again to the earth.   

 
There's an outdoor elevator that would take 
              an hour to ride to the top of its   
       building. Leisurely ascent, time to experience  
              a kind of slow suspension, though that's  
nothing compared to trees in an olive grove 
              which have persisted for almost  
      a thousand years. Two leaves have yellowed 
              on the monstera. Plant guides say  
it could be from either under- or overwatering;  
              it's hard to tell for sure. No one  
      would mistake a violin beetle for the actual  
              instrument though perhaps that  
might not be entirely fair to the insect,  
              which may produce its own type of  
      coherent music just below the range  
              of your hearing. You hope   
you'll see in this lifetime the Picasso moth,  
              miniaturist bearing a gallery display  
      on its back. As long as there are bees,  
              there can be honey; and also that myth  
about how they defy the laws of physics with   
              their bumbling flight. Anything  
      is possible. To take the poison out,  
              change wasp to was, grieve 
to veer; strife to sifter, human to hum.

What is lyric but a thread 
             embroidering the shroud of our days,
      a feather clearing mirrors of fog
for a visitation of ghosts and ancestors?  
      It's damp again tonight, which means
             our memories can leak through thin
spots in the fabric of time and find us. 
             The wind has knocked down summer-
      colored umbrellas and now their ribs,
open to the sky, are streaked with pollen.
      I am pulling on this thread 
             which reminds me: everything
      I mourn is also everything I loved,
cannot help but love; love even not knowing
      whether something will endure after  
             its passing. There are spaces 
      for rest like there are in music; 
when the rain clears, gardens open like poems.