a plant—

 

          with clarity—coat open:

orchid, andromeda, pepper

wet inside.           A plant

          a still- but still life—lit

discovered, on a botanist’s

mechanical stage, an oval eye

 

north on a cylindrical eyepiece,

a southern iris diaphragm, open

          field to direct a botanist’s

dream. Thick, cut peppered

          across, above lip—

                              a plant

 

watches a mouth, no plant-

built instrument for eye

         needed—not split.

No strands account for it. A plant opens,

shoots seeds, stings— a scorpion pepper

          — a botanist

 

          sneezes. Fog-thick—a botanist

squeezes an objective lens—a plant

shrugs flowers off, wrinkles pepper-

textured, crunch to circumference.

A plant watches a botanist open

          fist around arm, however lit

 

          shoots deny a fit:

          a square a botanist

fails to sit around a circle. Open

          limit to spores— a plant

strips brackets, what taxes eyes—

vanilla, andromeda, pepper.

 

          Coarse or fine, a pepper

blows to nosepiece, illuminator

now juice-graved—strip to eyes

          tears flood a botanist’s

          lids.                  Plants

          a plank open—

 

          growing eyes—

pepper—leads to leaves, roots—

unlit— a botanist can’t clip.

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Ajloun

 

corner ant climbs

yellow spear

 

earth vibrates

 

hair under a train

of palms

 

 

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poem

 

we listen: cats, birds to land

ends—you bend your wrist

upright—my heart hops past

                    its limit

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from What meat is it we need?

 

[                                 ]

 

Ask me once to shed this wooden

deadpan tongue, say it plainly, I

went forward never

afraid that reality could be linear.

 

Time in a hat is no time at all:

years pass, provided a hat’s survival.

Crack this nut. I feel fears

shells have on the onset of breaking.

 

Lives are detailed by living parts: a noose

outlives the air inside it. Nostrils like

graves where hairs grow. I

thought how the wind would

 

force the door shut. A bang,

suspense. Ask me once if

she lived well—dead air in

trench. Ask how knees hang.