camembert & sliced apples

Clear Broth, Sliced Mushroom, Tender Spinach
from "how to analyze birds."

the leaves velvety and languid—lunch today,
a simple soup: I kiss spring in every spoonful, like a sister.
You are welcome here, I tell her, any time.

At another table, a man who would like to say
something,won’t. The waiter brings red tulips with the tab,
and their eaves-dropping lean over the vase reminds me—

do not on a day such as this go to take your
torpid fears from the attic, camphor-smelling. Leave them
as they lie, folded arm over arm, their season passed:

see how the sky ciphers, day to night, new gratuities of blue?