William's Other Valentine

The spirit can never be sick
though it can put on sickness
we call it the body either
we have come through
to thinking’s no accident

or we have further bleeding
to go so the body’s a radio
ready to transmit
purely and sternly the static
of love’s northwest passage

and most chronic scenery
a new Hoya whose flowers bloom
only on last year’s stems
probing the air
with tiny umbrellas.