Stephanotis

We walked to the Leslie Street Spit from Queen Street
after my return.
We hadn’t seen each other for more than a month.
                     Newly shy, intent together,
even after all these years.
I noticed weeds, the other walkers,
how you aimed to joke.
You took my photo by the lake
to generate a keepsake;
I bought a stephanotis.

Dormant on the hoop,
it stayed austere until July,

when out of army green it loosened spry, erratic shoots—
helical around the metal
slats of the venetian blinds—  
coiled in pliable embrace
they looped-the-loop like snakes— 
                                        elastically.

So they would have been garters.

—ELANA WOLFF

(Originally published Christmas, 2005.)