Sucker Hole

In the afternoons, thunderheads
spooled in from the sea. You used to joke

that from your office window
on base there was nothing but framed

clear sky, blue as the deep end of a pool,
but on the flight line suddenly you were curtained

in by storms, fooled, once again, by a Florida
sucker hole. Each spring I watched dewberries

unwind in our backyard, counted wild
shiso, wood sorrel, and chickweed too. You

resurrected the gardenia bush by the pergola
with just a bit of pruning, but I could lose

any planned thing to neglect, accidentally forget
a whole garden of tomatoes and crookneck

squash, the basil gone sour at the throat
of each leaf. Still, when our backyard

offered us wild berries in a brief
window of splendor, I took them. I watched

the clouds pile against the planes over the bay,
and each day you always came home.