an impertinence

in the boston spring i watched the tulips bloom

&it was a shame, because the photograph

i took didn’t quite capture the person whom

i was intending it for; flowers as a lovesick metaphor

in the summer of that year i had some eye issues

&the world turned upside down, items roving everywhere, my vision impaired

like when suffocating boston heat came in on all of us in one fellow swoop

like when the word swoop became what he did to women on bar chairs

in the fall i writhed on my bed, having some kind of love seizure

while he went on a date, an open relationship that i’d come to regret

&while the freezing boston air came and went with some kind of malignant leisure

i closed the windows, the narrow view i had of a fence & fall leaves impertinent

in the winter of that year i left my boston apartment & my snot frooze

upon leaving the warmth within & i told myself he’d come around eventually

the cafe heat fogging up my glasses when i walked in, boots coated in snow

&the only thing left in the bottom of my tea cup was lost opportunity