Where can we build/ the house of spring

It's just the second week of May, but it seems like the seasons have sped up--it's already quite hot out. As my friend Katie said, "Sweat begins [now] and doesn't end until October." And I, at a later point, replied that I feel like I haven't been hardened off properly, and can't get used to the heat if it comes on so suddenly. Even if it doesn't feel like it, here's a poem by Laura Kasischke for

The Second Week of May

What will we buy with Judas's money?
Who will live in Hitler's house? What

shall we do with this veil stolen

from the murdered bride, this
blanket lifted from the sleeping child?

I will buy candy, says the sweetheart.
I will grow here, the primrose sings.

The lightness of silk in the perfumed breeze, soft
as cashmere, pale pink.

Where can we build
the house of spring,

the one built
on a clear conscience, the one
in which no innocent

civilian has ever been killed?
Yes. Imagine.
Every day
a clean kitchen, every night a Puritan's pillow.

But it's May, and the lilac
whispers to the wisteria,
Whose shadow shall I wear
this year to prom? Whose

white scarf sewn from a virgin's last breath is this?


(From Gardening in the Dark)