A Poem for a Portrait

I am warm wind breaking through your garden

growing only tomatoes. Bent stalks bow,

its yellow taxi blooms forming a sky. I am

the hungry possum that clears your crop, filling

my cheeks with ripe fruit. I am the coyotes

in your backyard, brilliant fools walking city streets

and there’s prickly pear on my tongue.

I am the third baby tooth you lost, pulled out

with a blue string tied to your bedroom door.

I am the fairy tale you’re told for a silver dollar earned.

I am your butterfly bedsheets and feather down pillow.

I am a plucked bird; plump plume-less pheasant, missing

a flight I’ve never taken and there’s a soft call

in the clouds as I blow by.