filled my eyes with trilliums, my mouth
with anemones. I take the garden
with me when I walk under a blue canoe
of moon, my ears awash in the bramble
of roses, my nose tethered
to sweet dip of dahlia.
This is how I know my fingers
are stems, that buds curl
at the tips, that honeybees alight, pray.

And when I enter the hot swampy grasses
at lane’s end, feel the devil’s breath,
his hairy torso, sounds splay
in my knees, crickets harangue
at my throat, and here,
here in my belly a full chord
of trillium, anemone, dahlia,
and that reckless sprawl of roses.