Three
       

Two is just this and that
while three is a way out.
Two stutters, clicks shut,
begins and ends with itself.
Three strains toward the unknown,
is an arch, an angle, a reaching.

Two roses in a vase on a sill
and, lizard-like, your blood cools,
eyelids flutter, almost close—
three and you begin to consider
a different job, a trip to Brussels
or, standing at the window, think:

          I'll dig a pond in the middle
          of the lawn, add goldfish
          and frogs , a painted turtle,
          water lilies with cupped white flowers—
          birds will drink, maybe a heron.
                                                        See how she breaks

          from the shallows, opens
          the blue fan of her wings, rises
          over the tree line, see how the water
          quakes with her leaving.

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Copyright © 2018 Sharron Singleton All rights reserved
from Our Hands a Hollow Bowl
Grayson Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission