Bottle Gentian

This August, understand
what never opens. You thought

you knew about blooming, a mouth
into a mouth, the ditches lavish

with daylilies. But here, five
fused petals live

on refusal, clamped shut as a mailbox
hoarding its letters. Each year

the river shifts, the old spruce—tindery,
brittle—comes closer

to falling in. Still, there are days
you love it all, not knowing: the precise

line between woods and field, between
gold grass and pine-and-dimness—

and the way a hummingbird's shadow
flickers on the table,

how something so small could tremble the light.

Copyright © 2004 Kasey Jueds All rights reserved
from 5AM
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission