Fiction by Lisel Mueller

 

Going south, we watched spring

unroll like a proper novel:

forsythia, dogwood, rose;

bare trees, green lace, full shade.

By the time we arrived in Georgia

the complications were deep.

When we drove back, we read

from back to front. Maroon went wild,

went scarlet, burned once more

and then withdrew into pink,

tentative, still in bud.

I thought if only we could go on

and meet again, shy as strangers.

Lisel Mueller