Crab apple trees blooming all over town!
Some brave, hopeful soul in the street-tree 
department has ordered them planted
on tired boulevards and wind-blasted avenues, 
in the sad alleys and on dusty side streets:
little staked stick trees lined up and blossoming,
 red mallow/rose madder/magenta to
candy pink, flamboyant pom-poms dancing 
alongside old ficuses—elephant-skinned
and struggling for balance—proud magnolias
and harum-scarum gum trees, gnarled pittosporums 
smelling of jasmine, and—just in time
for the warm days of spring, and despite everything 
that keeps going wrong—the ginkgos,
opening tiny green fans.