Second Look

Lord, let me be patient without rancor
and spit my gritty words into an old
bottle which can be emptied surreptitiously.
Though I am used to nature’s paraphrase,
these wilted, reclining clover blooms
cut down in their prime and filling the air
with the soft, sticky smell of resignation
seem to me the lost edges of self-respect
and I see in their repose a vacuous face
full of intensive submission like a
southern rose laid on the dark casket
of an old perversion. The worship of decay
calls us everywhere but we don’t
have to kneel and we can tear the wreaths
apart with our bare hands.