ALICE BOLIN

Landscape: trillium

Try three-pointed. Arrange in layers,
green and white, like fancy napkins.
Shoots carve out the lowest tract of sky.
To put in mind a novel’s country walks
or the lush volcano that serrates the sea.
I don’t hope for a stand-in. Note to myself,
“I like how you work quickly,” folded
a triangle of white paper lined with blue.
White petals turn pink in ragged summer.
Then we could never be said to get up
because we were never sleeping. I walked
the wet streets lonely for starlight. Just white
on white or damp on damp or white on green,
no Polaroids, no way to say a path, though
I’ve envisioned the most delicate groundcover.
The garden swells with you—name
like a tin bird singing. In portrait studies
the chest wanes, shadow a fingertip
in places of fullness, your face is still shy,
pale edges of the mouth in flower.