I hear the year’s first owl, I see
the summer evenings of wide eyes
come to me, hot on the covers.
I smell and hear the summer come

in dark night at spring’s beginning.
In the parks, people can perform
their social media, can get
the right light, and the right shot done

with the intermittent flash thing
on a stick. Or take photos of
nature, such as it is, confined
within the bounds of the black fence.

The crown-bearer virus is swept
basculating into the rare
and transformative air of the
space between minds, within the park

It propagates everywhere now,
’til every object collapses
into a simulacra full
of small and spherical crystals –

They are spraying from the fountain.
They are clinging to your damp hands.
If you listen you can hear it
their small and terrible prayer