I still wait for the heft of those slight notes,

those flurries in spring like cherry blossoms falling.

For whatever reason (is it the lambent swan I saw?)

absence of that traffic today like a weight on the heart.

Trees are enrobing themselves again, and no one I know here

rolls up their jeans like you did in that evanescent season.

You could write to tell me that, you know. But also know you won't.

Spirit messages joined At the ends on the wall Over which rain-washed Sunlight makes it morning

Journey - their slight diff- rences the way tenderness Toward the lovers differs, Like a dish baked over

And over, with different Shakes of salt and pepper

• those obscene yet urgent Murals scrawled on urinal

Walls, breasts and penises and The traffic of adolescent ardor - "A loves B", "wanna suck C's boobs", "my dick is bigger than E's"

• and surprise that the heart's Snarl after these many years Of adulthood isn't much different!

Stanza, in Italian, means room, And volta - the turn

Of pleasure that comes from Watching Radhika as she puts on

shoes like anklets, and looks up to find him watching her dark eyes,

shaded green and sienna under the bird-lit stanza of cotton trees.