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.
