From the Fishouse

i would give up anjou pears for you, and their cousins
the bosque, which are more beautiful, wrapped ochre,

wrapped gold around their small deaths--wrapped securely
as though they know an old friend will call, say love, say
no. and this old friend, he would die for a crust of earth

peeled back to reveal some buried bliss, a dance of bees
singing out the ruined pleasure of their battle, their lavish

avenues of forsythia, their swank arias of roses, inked roses,
sung roses that want most to be the silk worm’s slink and cower.

pity them, their faithless world, their bruised
and darkening red. i would give up anjou pears for you.

i would peel away their splendorous backs to reveal the equation
we build our hunger upon, the dank musk of decay turned sweet,
the soil’s woe begotten centuries mulched into pollen, nectar.

think of the silk worm’s desire--its dreams of mulberry leaf,
its singular drive toward the green silhouette of rapture.