In hospital how high the heat for amaryllis to push out from the furrow of its soil,
Unbroken as a child fleece-bound, making every Ashkenazi angel red in snow.
A microscopic scene of what might have been—if one chromosome
Had misshapen differently. Behind the crescent of the curtain “C,”
A meadow of some suffering, but quietly. Blue-eyed, my wilder gift,
All afternoon the toy wolves have been feeding, almost invisibly it seems.
The marrow of the reeds of wood-wind taps the windowsill. Brother, love as if
I couldn’t know that this is bliss—where I am now, the frost so terminal
I keep it in a teacup-tundra lit by cures of cream and unrelieved oblivion.