A pale green flower opens in a cold window—final
petals all tissue and vein—its horn-belled throat stills
away two limp sepals, its filaments stretch
lean and capped with senseless pollen. Here
there is no summer-rapt bee, no tongued moth, nothing
with wings to rub the waked anther, its umber
cloaked fur. No lust is quenched, no appetite fed.
In a winter-hardened house nothing enters to seed the fruit,
nothing approaches that will end in honey.
Sheryl White’s work has been published in Ibbetson Street Press, Blast Furnace, Poetry Quarterly, and The Boston Globe. She is also a fine artist, painting in oil, and work at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Visitor Engagement.
