Death & Camellias

The fence buckles

By a camellia’s weight

A cloying honeysuckle breath

Calls wilted petals falling

As if long drought surceased

In a tea cup’s avalanche

Jawbones prow the earth

A grimace clowned and sidelong 

As if this were once a circus tent

Not a marshalling yard

Where brays anxious met

The impelling silence

Of hammers and serrations

When the earth uproots

In trenchant cascades

The ivy hideous, shivering

A wave, bent on the fulcrum’s back

In upheaval’s raw display

I wonder what pretty monsters

From desiccate honeycombs

In husk pale efflorations

From the secret earth, arise