Love Poem

for Amanda

The dry vine from a kind of weedwhose yield is pods is being flungout senselessly by the wind, and a scrapof the vine at that, the part still curledaround the cedar branch, its host,with a kite-tail hanging down,and one of the pods is open likea heart on a paper Valentinefrom school I used to get and usedto make by folding the paper in halfand turning it around the scissors,mostly for friendship, or to dowhat everybody else would do,but the hearts I made were always off.This one, fluttering from the vinethat's fastened to the branch of the tree,was full of seeds that floated awayin the fall, then winter happened to it.And there it is, just hanging there,as if someone tied it to the branchand the vine had no decision in it.