I have no words for what our love is growing,
soft inside us like an orchid sprout—
there is no language, just a sort of knowing
in our unknowing, confidence in doubt:

the drizzle flecks on windows, sunshine streaks
on dampened glass. So what are we about?
Which spots in us are watertight; what leaks . . .
which things are best kept in, and which let out?

And who are you? And who am I, at last,
when love has done its work and stretched its leaves
in fullest measure toward the sunlit sky—
or into the impartial blow and blast

that rips the shingles off our slanting eaves
and cracks the panes till neither you nor I
can shield our flower from the weather’s fray?

And sun or no sun, will it find its way?