After the rain

Even the wrists and necks
of the no longer
young whose spring has
drifted with the gold

and green, even the ever
odd-angled bodies,
all coarse, brown,
stick-spined, whose knobs

and joints jut in cancerous
fashion; even these cherry
trees weeping for the summer
of fruit and flowers—

the clouds have clothed
all, clasped baubles round
rough wrists, crowned every
branch with clean, clear

pearls. I walk beside
the hunchback trunks—
in a month they will grow
white wings, will fling

blossoms from bones
and sprinkle petals, flushed
and frail on the sidewalks
now black with water
after the rain.