Every year she kills it, the orchid.
I take comfort in this ritual, a riot
of purple starved to bones. Sweet
is the inevitability of her neglect.

If I spent every daybreak on this balcony,
the man walking three pugs would become ritual

in the way I once knew the schedule of a fox
who crossed the bay window on mornings snow

Beyond the sanctuary and teachers’ barrio
where your brothers are building roads,

I picked guayabas with our children
who had never tasted that fruit.