Tipped goblets, the blue herons
flap across the glassy pond.
Two then four, they chase each other,
then stop at the penciled shoreline
to wrap their necks together.
How like you, Iris, twisting
your green stems in the grasses.
Heron flowers, humid and patient as fists
that spring to flying buttresses,
stained cathedral naves.
if I were to make a monster, Iris,
to chase me, to suffocate in its bloom,
it would be you. Here comes Iris
marching across the pasture, waving
her rapier skirt, twirling
her caterpillar furs. Oh sing
of the brevity of life
and the ephemeral nature of pleasure,
erotic and funereal anguish,
dark rivered nectar.
Once I lay by a bed of Iris
and once by my dying father
and each time I pressed my face
against the damp
and shriveling flesh.
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