Horse Nettle

Here is a thorn among the green,
Sharp and tender as a tooth.
Here are five songs for the dead,
Five movements, five gestures,
Five dances for that dark company
In five ballrooms, every one as lush
As these woods in the long exhale
At the end of summer. The grasses
Yellow, and the flower in the throng
Of barbed horse nettle sharpens
Its bone-white blades, pale as haunting,
Against the grit of forest floor. What
Does the ghost of the poison flower
Dream as she withers around her globe
Of fruit, clutching her green pearl,
Her waxing prize, even as her petals
Dry to husk? Not even the blackbirds
Can conjure the music she hears,
The sixth song, the one no creature
Of flesh can sing, fragile as we are.