Tardy Bugs

this october warm haze cheats
us into hallucinating summer
roses pump up sparse buds with a fury that would
give cabbage blooms if this weather went on
bumblebees nap on gaura flowers bending swaying
on filaments

the afternoon blushes
an efflorescence
inexplicable numbers fill the air
settle on brick on white door as if on sandy beaches
                                              in the Bahamas
eyeing rapacious eyes staring from leaves of the crabapple
that now is animate with screams and jostlings
i urge these absurd polka-dot balls underground
you don’t know what’s coming and if you all get caught
by a frost, get picked out by beaks like coins thrown among
crowds what’ll happen in spring when the ants will shepherd
their aphid flocks up the tenderest shoots i say as i brush them
away from the crack of the door
they bursting orange then gathering themselves into
compact hemispheres soaking soaking the last of the sun

   

 

In This Dark Season

what crystals in this white violet
refract like snow
in sun
so flower glitters
cosmetically
on window sill
while all
the ones outdoors
have drooped
under lead breath
of frost

what inner fold
unfurls
within this bulb
to send
for now just speartip
of hope
for a resplendence
peach-blossom
amaryllis

what drives
these cactus
hardly
leaves
spare thorny
seeming tortured
to push forth
as if between
spread thighs
twin buds
that will
like bells
keep
echoing
themselves