for Alexandra

Clean water in the porcelain basin, a croissant, 
coffee on the balcony. Beyond this room the world
smelling like snow that is to say like nothing.

Over a newspaper in bed you peel an orange 
with a blunt knife and ask another word for singing,
your white shirt in the closet beside my white shirt.

This lightness. The pink salt lake sky. 
Somewhere: ice on the mountains. That arctic 
calm as Cello Suite No.1 arpeggios in from the street.

Do you still hear it, Alice, the Mediterranean crackle 
in sleep? No money for artichoke hearts, the fat 
of butter, meat. And yet this square of morning:

almonds in a bowl by the bedside, the clear stone in 
your wedding ring. When you would say Bella, no sadness, 
the light is steady; it holds each time you leave.