As A Damper Quells A Struck String

To name the melon flower is not to chart the hypothetical,

Nor tame the fledged edges of the wild.

To name the melon flower

(Two words calling forth a globe and dried out vines)

Is to feel in one's mouth dusky vowels.

The words, beyond the drone of logic,

A concoction of sulfur, brine, charred driftwood, and rose,

Less than a dash and more than a pinch.

Is it for nothing, then, that the wind's

Tributaries fall, baffle and stall, at the horse latitudes,

While the wind here troubles the hill's tiger lilies,

Glazes then roughs up the pond's surface,

Fabricates from roadside sand

(Gone now before I can name it) a cyclone?

Copyright © 2005 Eric Pankey All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission