Imagine finding Juliet in repose
And turning her to Julius on the steps.
DESECRATION I & II
Worse even than extracting the leaves
Is arriving in October to find
The flowerbed turned over and barren
The bulbs split with steel and lying in the sun
The last columbine broken and half-buried.
"They must have died," says the man
Who must not understand
How the quiescence of winter differs
From the calm after a bomb falls.