LATE SUMMER
The spider’s silver threads
proliferate, corner to corner,
tying all together, as if they could
spin a cocoon in which to brood
a safety refuge for the life that teems
in every nook in summer, there to ripen
the season’s fruit, and breed insects
until it all will rot and the wind tears
and tramples, shaking gardens bare
of all multiplication, stripped
to bark and naked branches in
a barren sky, a cold and clean redoubt.
TULIPS IN FEBRUARY
Pale-legged, dressed in shiny winter plastic
their heads look frail and dry until, unwrapped,
expanding in green frocks, they will,
tight-lipped, raise timid heads above my table
and spend the night, white feet drinking their fill.
Then look, their pointed lips, loosened, being
to smile, swelling in morning’s light as I
lean over them; their pink and yellow petals
unclasp. Craned necks lift unbowed buds
with a faint breath of distant, dormant spring.