19

In the red-brick bed half in the lee
Of the library, half in the road,
A bush wrestles with the wind,
Multifoliate arms tussling gently
With the air and amber light
And crushed, exhumed soda cans
Cobwebbed in the reaching leaves,
Some cans and stubs like windfall
At the toenailed roots. Wind
Seems to hatch jostling up out
Of the crown of straining buds.
As if the air, congealed, had
Spiracled green into the earth.
Air grows through the foliage
Thoroughly, as through an organ,
The amber light suspiring its form.
Somewhere a capillary opens up
In red darkness like a lotus flower.