The Grocery Bouquet

Dear you and I are two who this year blessed

The spring's untenderness, the absence of

That time's intolerable tinder, the chime

Of iridescent wind, and birdsoft air.

No sweetness stabbed except the fact of you

Or I could not have borne being just a

Short walk and a lifetime away from you.

Though we endured the smell of hyacinth

And lilac grocery-bought we could not be

Apart now, love, had we passed these growing.

And though kind june begins without a rose,

Ineed november afternoons. I dread

The summer nights the raw remembering.

ISABELLA GARDNER

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