The Heart’s Year
Le coeur a ses saisons…
May
The treetops dance
to a lively air.
The crows are out,
looking for trouble.
The wind ambushes
your loosened hair.
June
The season is unkind
to the dark lady.
All those bright hours
hide the moon
July
A day on Venus lasts longer than a year.
July is not that bad.
Still I long for shady ladies.
August
The heart recuperates,
murmurs a little
and takes its pulse.
September
Finding a letter
tucked in a book,
I remember Natasha
whose name is a whisper.
October
Maladies of the heart
are not always mysterious.
I wake from a dream of the fire dancers
and the elephant.
November
The night is cold, my love,
and you have embezzled the sheets.
December
The bare branches
are the poems of women
forbidden to speak of love.
January
That soft laugh–
echo
of intimacy
past.
February
Im-
probably
love rises
from the heart’s
oubliette.
March
Night shrouds the mirror.
The dark is without
duplicity.
April
In the end
the heart still wanders
the labyrinth
of the flesh.
–Robert E. Wood