A man talking to his ex-wife on the phone. <br />He has loved her voice and listens with attention <br />to every modulation of its tone. Knowing <br />it intimately. Not knowing what he wants <br />from the sound of it, from the tendered civility. <br />He studies, out the window, the seed shapes <br />of the broken pods of ornamental trees. <br />The kind that grow in everyone's garden, that no one <br />but horticulturists can name. Four arched chambers <br />of pale green, tiny vegetal proscenium arches, <br />a pair of black tapering seeds bedded in each chamber. <br />A wish geometry, miniature, Indian or Persian, <br />lovers or gods in their apartments. Outside, white, <br />patient animals, and tangled vines, and rain.<br /><br />Robert Hass<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-165/
