Jonquils and Naught (revision)

You can fall a long way in the sunlight.
You can fall a long way in the rain.
The ones who don't take the old white horse
take the evening train."       -Robert Haas                   

                       Jonquil, the word drops

from your mouth like two weighted marbles.

They roll on the heartwood and out

                     the screen door into the front

garden where you spent the morning

writing letters to your missing brother

                    who was born twenty nine years ago

in the month of May, two weeks

late, and already out of breath.

Been three months since his last call.

February then, the lawn bitter, stunted,

still furious at the sun. Not much said,

                  kept his

words achingly 

polished in the wet parlor of his throat

Well, I... I will... soon... see you--

                        but if you could, you would have

reached right in, right down, right 

through that rigid duct to finger, 

just once, the word you knew was there,

unfurling like a bloom that 

thrives underground.