Her love is a Lazarus kind of love,
continually resurrected with no
hope of death, no stench,

wings burnt but beating, heart
blackened but pumping under
pink satin bows, ruffles, breasts.

She could be a robin or a bluebird.

She eyes his white drape, wills it
to fall, wills his resolve to yield,
to deepen, darken like his wings,

the gaping black square into which
he walks. She would daydream
all this: the painted cornice, golden

molding, a silver song on his lips,
low harmony of viola, bow
blazing across willing strings.

She would award him the red/
white variegated tulip of longing
and long no more, only — finally —

consummate spirit and flesh, bring
one world into or out of the other
with a flutter of wing, paper-whites,

the shrill accompaniment of a flute.