By Joanne McNeil Hayes
 For Bob, July 2017

Sicilian heat rises
                  against red earth

inches toward buff clouds
                 like birds in open air.

What if passion is insecure,
                 playful, disheartened by silence?

If so, we turn to sunflowers
                 and love them in the shade or under water,

and when they dry to scrub and
                 blow listless in the wind,
                 we know that lives have passed us by.

We enter through a pastel sleep where
                 deep red moros hug the sky and

rain turns sunset a cobalt blue.