Candlelight, a dying cactus.
Meals and voice. In spring,
one blossom.

The flower is self incompatible
in a dream where you are
strangling your mother’s houseplants-

strength as great
as ballerina ankles
you awaken to
nocturnal insects. Wiry,

their hunger and births.
Night-blooming. Why not swarm
the red wall’s cracked lips, a raid
on borrowing all your
years from whiteness

and from bare, wooden ribs
tarantulas are released,

spiny thistles explode
towards closer skin. Bucket the water,
straitjacket the sun, but I cannot
live without fog.

Come elf owls,
come bat tongues.