by Jenny Grassl
deep in the flower you coax feel the pod-throb
like your own pulse and the vine bluing in your wrist
grow penumbras of spring in hour of ancestor
their amniotic skins shadow and onion-hover you
keeper of the green flame binge toward peak flowering
let folded-in wings crack and fly their color stun rip
of red gold and orange a pyromania spurred by spice
from earth’s core and surface honey when frost breaks them
at the knees pull stems away from the ground by root
and wastrel hair yanked scaffolding of a summer
hold high the vine soaking your garden gloves
last juice to shake the earth and inherit