Canopy

Beautifully drawn
houses, each

with a lapful of sunshine.
Consummate small talk—
animals, mechanics, offers
of assistance, love.
Like the trees

the people regale
each other with song:

If you love
someone, if you
love someone….
In a field of the imagination
boots, jeans part the grass
green, damp, buttercup-entwined.
The song is about death. The people—
dyed-in-the-wool lovers of small—are moved

to a landscape vegetative and light.
The boy is enchanted, he could
die in that song.
Lips curled over her voice
eyes narrowed, accusatory, the girl

steps back off the beautifully drawn
porch onto shingle fine and familiar
with tiny star-like sorrel

into the bush backwards, perhaps
juggling her hands.