It is impossible to write a poem
about cygnet swans lazing south of the bridge,
black and luminous under licorice necks.
Nor can I write of my dead neighbor's children
who hollow her garden to build a fence.
Tulip bulbs rustle their oniony hearts in panic.
This afternoon, lost, I painted a sunflower
on the belly of a platter in the ceramics shop
amid cool, bumpy surfaces,
the noise and snot of toddlers
mewling against their mothers.

This is not a poem's seed:
the bodies of swans languishing,
tulips bending their wolf-heads against my hand
as children bright and cunning,
dig in the ground.