All the signs of rain
but no rain comes.
Dustwind
rattles the tall
eucalyptus trees;
the storms
travel away.
Black, verminous insects
beat their crusted heads
against the eaves.
Far in the west, the sun squints
through seas of purple clouds.
Clouds like water, clouds like seas
(like the cool seas off California).
A plane crosses the sun,
no bigger than a dust mote.
The long hedge of oleander. . .
leaves that yield
a poisonous glycoside.
May bees swarmed in its branches.
The bee-man came and took them away,
and the white pain of June mornings came.
Oleander, oleander, nerium oleander,
a poisonous
Mediterranean shrub
of the dogbane family
(strange flowers
that have no sweetness).
White and white and shades of May red,
shades of rose-red,
shades of blood-red.
Its blossoms shattered the May evenings,
and brood now
in the thick air
in the sour light of summer.
Planes float south,
drifting toward Sky Harbor,
drifting toward Alexandria.
Justine, Justine,
in the yellow spaces of Egypt.
Mountolive, olive, olive tree.
Mountolive, Clea, Balthazar.
Worms crawl in sweet spice.
There is no cool wind.
There is no apocalypse.