You buy a plant  you cannot
name, you name a flower
you have not seen. A crimson whim
drives the force 

to tether your ignorance upon your palms,
deep into your nails. 

Press the leaves that fall from portage
into the book you call your current read.
Close the book
that gives you nothing now, 

offers more pressure than impression
in its present function at hand.

A private garden in Georgia
with all of its growth labeled just for you,
is the out-of-town passerby’s exaltation
the way a public arboretum exists to preserve,

educate, enhance,
sector unbiased. You may believe 

because the park where you seek shelter
is a mountain of sod,
waiting for a landscape architect’s next set of drawings,
a city’s next referendum. A place 

you sought for safe haven,
is a scam, a sign, a curse. But you are still the one 

who does not know the name
of the plant hanging ruby rich
above your porch rail,
still the one who could knock her fists against a board, 

an inner ear to loosen a level plane,
a balance beam,
still the one from the clutches
of teeter-totter time ago.