A girl reading a letter at an open window,
the air scented with wet pavement.

She’ll curve the paper into the shape of a shell
and listen into the sea, its stammerings.

She’ll read the hand not the words: brazen
strokes of signature; letters that graph
the cursive cityscape; hasty peaks then
hesitation; then the black pond of a blotted pause.

The tongue of the bell, too, speaks: Someone
has been buried. Come, come home, it clangs.

Music busies the street at noon.

And always pigeons calling from the roof.
Clear chatter of girls—like falling coins.
And under this a desperate noise like wounded
horses carted off, and under this the sound
of something opening: row upon row

of tulips showing their brilliant throats.