Landscape: trillium

Try three-pointed. Arrange in layers,

green and white, like fancy napkins.

Shoots carve out the lowest tract of sky.

To put in mind a novel’s country walks

or the lush volcano that serrates the sea.

I don’t hope for a stand-in. Note to myself,

“I like how you work quickly,” folded

a triangle of white paper lined with blue.

White petals turn pink in ragged summer.

Then we could never be said to get up

because we were never sleeping. I walked

the wet streets lonely for starlight. Just white

on white or damp on damp or white on green,

no Polaroids, no way to say a path, though

I’ve envisioned the most delicate groundcover.

The garden swells with you—name

like a tin bird singing. In portrait studies

the chest wanes, shadow a fingertip

in places of fullness, your face is still shy,

pale edges of the mouth in flower.