What’s bane to wolves and whales
and poisons humans
nourishes the dot moth
and the yellow-tailed,
the wormwood pug, as dark
as a slug, the nervous
mouse moth, and the engrailed.
Distinguish milk-white
from ivory, learn to locate
sepals of aconite
from the trail: they resemble devils’
helmets one day
and, the next, the delicate cowls
Dominicans adjust
in prayer. No single apposition
fits, but, like a magnet,
pushes towards its opposite.
When the three-jawed dog
landed here, snarling at the sun
and pining for Hades,
his rabid sounds scattered
white foam,
drool which took root in Scythia
but flourished in areas
where nothing useful
bloomed, and no dust reached.
Now, down-creeping
into clearings, stalks wavering
along the tracks
that once linked factory towns,
the flower’s grown
as inexorable as speech—
sustenance
or toxin, to anyone
who wanders close.
from Raritan