(in memory of my mother)
Late winter the sun through my window,
through geraniums.
Flowering on door steps,
on window sills, they know no season
but a pot of earth and the sun shining.
Sunlight softens, steeped in geranium.
We grew up among clay pots of them,
the smell familiar as fresh bread.
Bony limbs of geraniums
at the window sill
broke into flower
and petals drifted down curtains.
We grew accustomed to
the scarlet and pink abundance
of blossoms.
Rosy with the pleasure
of a shaft of light,
inside the house or out,
they leaned with their humid breath
as faithful as our own
over the smallest details of our lives.
We swept up their leavings,
their flare in our dust.
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