It Is a Small Plant

It is a small plant delicately branched and tapering conically to a point, each branch and the peak a wire for green pods, blind lanterns starting upward from the stalk each way to a pair of prickly edged blue flowerets: it is her regard, a little plant without leaves, a finished thing guarding its secret. Blue eyes— but there are twenty looks in one, alike as forty flowers on twenty stems—Blue eyes a little closed upon a wish achieved and half lost again, stemming back, garlanded with green sacks of satisfaction gone to seed, back to a straight stem—if one looks into you, trumpets—! No. It is the pale hollow of desire itself counting over and over the moneys of a stale achievement. Three small lavender imploring tips below and above them two slender colored arrows of disdain with anthers between them and at the edge of the goblet a white lip, to drink from—! And summer lifts her look forty times over, forty times over—namelessly.