I planted a quince for her, completing the ellipse
of fruiting trees — plum, apple, an apricot
grown from a stone — for its colour and grace.
But six weeks after her death, it’s not the bitterness
of quince that has me by the throat again,
but the acer tossing its red hair
under the running skies of May,
the tree whose leaves she untangled
with hands that untangled my hair.