All this is true — In a time of discipline and misery plants hang down and look up beside the window steamed with conversation. The leaves of a geranium — intimate and exact — meet my eye on the right. How true things are — Headlights cruise by like a fish beneath the star and glare of an automotive logo. Near to me the geranium frames a red glow on the glass OPEN open open — from the red neon sign across the street. Everything is true — Geometry and flowers print the tablecloth. The waiter sets my place. All this? I ask. The works, he says. The pepper in the soup burns my lips. The salad is a nest woven with sprouts and leaves, seeds, everything.