Poetry

How a fuchsia blouse becomes
bougainvillea, or
a pair of greyhounds staggers
into abstraction, zigzag

Primitive angiosperm, genus 
prior even to bees,

When the fledgling fell 
from its nest, by meager attempt,
by pinwheel descent,
and lay, unguarded,

Famously late, light reaches us
eons past its own extinction,

Vendors approaching men with
women, holding out a solo rose, long-stemmed

Early mystery,
out of what century

The lithograph hangs
immaculate, while the chest
beneath it gleams.

Quartal voicings, the alcohols. 
Swallows in a martini sky, jigsawed

the hive swells outside
as its residents itch to lick our inner walls 

for moisture and respite 

I am the man in the play-
ground, the cord of his earbuds

clenched in his teeth
(bit in a horse’s mouth)