Titian Blue

You are the Titian blue exotic flower
of an efflorescent confluence of rivulets
of grace: so many random odd embraces
brought you here: the first, the passionate

conjoining of, expulsion from a pair of loins:
the rest a brace of unremembered, barely
known, misunderstood and treasured
kisses, arms, alarms, disarming presences

who wanted you or whom you wanted
and who are as gone as any ancient
geologic epoch: oh, be as fond of blooms
as any generating god would be! Today’s

magnificently January – pale and darkening,
cold rain – an afternoon to entertain the range
of strange peculiarities like these: the way
the Nineteenth Century elaborates its fractal

curlicues into the gray amalgamating frieze
your eyes take in of cornices across
the street and branches in the park, the way
the winter city comes to meet you in the dark.

This is the pleasantest dream harbor
to embark from and return to: be the Titian blue
exotic flower that you are through all of it.
Don’t worry that the weighty petals fall a bit.

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