By Jack Westmore

the preparation,
it makes its way in from the lemon

if you head to the hills, it lives
up here, among smell of salt
and ocean-rind, behind the slow cure
of afternoon
& i, not knowing how to love

who came here not knowing how to love
— it makes its way here, with river,
with railway (the railway line too is a part
of it), with the earth from which i have come…
it has many tongues
and in the distance, the bridge to which it is
tethered —
& arc-en-ciel to which it aspires —
the licking out of troubled law…

and behind the preparation, the leavening —
rising now, small angelic carpenters
that wholesome stitch our days together
then sudden
in a moment — sun! — sun presenting
its ignition, flames across
roadway & river — shedding its holography &
surface-annealing — sun and with it
a-coming volatility — & heat — & unity…