​​

she’d warned –

     the girl who brought us

coffee & pastries       

under the linden trees –

 

that they’d fall on us, those

specks

of yellow

 

spattering the cappuccino’s froth

blanking the news in Le Corriere

 

but if we’d  moved, what

would we have

forfeited?

 

a consecration

by blossom

the honey-scent

 

luring our eyes

up

into the arched trees’ flecked gold

 

                        to bees & butterflies

haphazard among the leaves

 

         further up still

to a triangle

     of blue

                                                          where swifts turn