from 'An Autumn Notebook'

II
Late Romantic

Hollyhocks, our
pair of them -
pure Tennyson.

It takes more
than a garden fence
to blast romance -

In verse they
hang heavily,
here they hang heavily

with dust on three
closed blooms,
their leaves skeletons.


III
Little Storms

bother at glass.
Their wet batters.

Hollows of the garden
...