Not one season of blossoms
in all the years since the hothouse.
You went with me, I remember.

All it comes forth with
is this Janus-leafed fountain:
broad daggers in layered arcs

which soar and droop on either side,
something like heavy leek tops
but without a whit of savor.

I think it squirms in its drabness
as it leans for the window,
unsexed as the blue wooden rabbit

on the mantel. I think it mimics
the way we’ve grown–those first
fierce, ravishing gifts withheld.

^{Previously published in Painted Hills Review (Davis, CA), Winter, 1992}

Author Bio:

James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His work has been published in Atlanta Review, The New York Quarterly, The Penn Review, The South Carolina Review, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2019.