The first: domestic, tamped in pots,
Unloaded into wheelbarrows, fitted tight in plastic trays.
Her foliage is sweet: leaf hearts; her petals symmetrical and flat.
She bides inside your gate, keeps low and still,
Faints easily from lack of drink and too much sun,
Though on occasion, after dark, she might
Dare light your way along the primrose path
Of you-know-what. Summer’s end, her ribbed pods
Swell, implore you for release.
Best keep her locked and watered.

Her wild twin just won’t be bartered,
Won’t be packed in sixes, sold, dangled from a fence.
She grows tall and full of juice along the river, woods.
And those gem-like mouths—red and orange wrath,
And laughter—simply nod, refusing to take fright
At foxes, squall, or stomping deer. Alone
On no man’s land, she procreates at will,
Or wills wind or quill to pop her. Silver paths
Crisscross her leaves; it’s just a fancy maze
That leads back where you started. Touch her. Touch her nots.

(from the new book, Inflorescence, due out shortly from Tupelo Press)

Eclipse 

Every so often I am dilated; the pupils
Swallow everything—a catchall soup,
Two cauldrons, stubborn in the bald glare

Of bathroom light. They are hunting sleep—
The sea grass, the blue cot rocking;
In sleep I am a Spanish dancer,

Awaiting my cue at the velvet curtain,
Now and then groping for the sash,
Or on horseback, abducted, thumping

Through pampas. I sleep too much;
I curl in at midday, sheepish,
In strange rooms. Clouds are hurrying by—

The walls, a wash of white; still my eyes
Are mazing through their dark gardens,
The great lamp shut, the crescents duplicating.

It is only a temporary state of affairs.
The sun boils behind the moon.

(originally printed in Gulf Coast magazine)

You Furze, Me Gorse

The only true synonyms in the English language
are "furze" and "gorse." — Tennyson

Furze, Gorse, of equal and abiding value
But for the speed of each word off the lips:
The warm and cornucopic cup of U
Hanging on by the very fingertips
Of the lazy Z. Furze, you would lie,
Luxurious; you would make a mattress;
You would carry yellow torches nightly,
Barbed fingers circling in slow caress.
Raise the lamps high, let us look at ourselves:
Once a tender union, now turned fierce,
Twins scratching across sands and rocky shelves.
Furze, Gorse. Which cuts worse?
The claws that grab and cling, purpling the skin,
Or the sudden spike that stabs and runs?

(originally printed in Western Humanities Review)

For the Fog Horn When There Is No Fog

Still sounding in full sun past the jetty,
While low tide waves lap trinkets at your feet,

And you skip across dried trident trails,
Fling weeds, and do not think of worry.

For the horn that blares although you call it stubborn,
In error, out of place. For the ridicule endured,

And the continuance.
You can count out your beloved - crustaceans - 

Winking in spray, still breathing in the wake,
Beneath the hooking flights of gulls,

Through the horn's threnody.
Count them now among the moving. They are.

For weathervane and almanac, ephemeris and augur,
Blameless seer versed in bones, entrails, landed shells.

For everything that tries to counsel vigilance:
The surly sullen bell, before the going,

The warning that reiterates across
The water: there might someday be fog

(They will be lost), there might very well
Be fog someday, and you will have nothing

But remembrance, and you will have to learn
To be grateful.

(originally printed in The Southern Review, reprinted as Poem of the Day for April 29, 2003 on VerseDaily.org)