Common Species
The words water lily,
their stems in mud,
ripen underwater.
Each rich sepal
is afloat with seeds,
but no scent issues
from something
so common.
Beyond this place
of umbels and stems,
in requiems and
cathedrals, it's
just like men
to carry so precisely
nothing like a coat.
But nothing is
nothing, from yellow
petals to bracts
of yarrow, ox-
eye daisy, and
jimsonweed.
Or nothing flares,
as one house grows
around its dying.
Descent into heaven
by means of speech.
Luminous debris
of an average place,
as when the room
is torn by sex
and exactness,
the hawk moth open
on this very bed.
At the mouth
of what answer
does the new
heart dwell?
Vibrating men and
unsocial women
entombed by habit
or living in grace.
Unruly powers like
chrysanthemums
and sin. Each word
now is equal to
another, its horizon
restless for a hint
of difference. Unruly
powers, chickweed
flowers. As the
plain facts deepen,
the proof of language
is a stinging nettle,
abandoned gardens.
