The leaves are budding on the trees. The buds
are popping everywhere. Spring as in spring in the step
makes sense. In Paris there is the dead of winter
as in you think of death as in great boats
of the dead ploughing through oceans of sky.
And then one week, bang, there is spring
and it feels like summer. You can almost hear
that popping and the blood quickens in the turtles

you’re minding, in that they’re slightly less spaced out
than usual. I read once that’s how reptiles work.
But for us in sun the blood slows down to dream.
There’s a pulse in the world you’re beginning to take.
The blood too sails through the long repair.
Eyes closed in the quiet you hear both beats.
There is you, which is good, who you like, and
then the trees ready to explode into light.