Over the crimson pods and dark styles
Of the oleander bush
The night bugs pivot and turn,
Yet do not land. How is it they know?
On the opposite wall, like the lines of some
Electroencephalogram,
The Virginia creeper spindles, trapping the light.
And Nightshade, they say, is sure—
Two berries can kill a man.
++++++
Already from the horizon, tossed
By the sea, the bottle
Has reached us-empty of anything, in pieces.
The pieces scatter and spell—
Like the styles of the oleander, and like the fruit,
They spell it out.
(And like, in childhood, those bits of glass
Taken into the flesh-which disappear,
Which leave no mark-will these, too, surface
In 25 years or so,
Uncolored, unedged, from our skin?)
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