' Red Flowers on Black'

after a painting by Elizabeth Bishop

 Elizabeth Bishop's Devil's Paintbrush bouquet
 sprouts out of thin air, from a fourteen fingered
 fist of leaves. The red heads bud on the flat black
 background and nod in conversation like old
 straight-laced ladies. Several, in small groups
 of three or more, lean their heads together
 or half turn away to whisper over their shoulders.
 One seems about to wander away into another
 room off-right to think it all over, or to say quietly
 something she's been thinking about for years.


Sestina with Two Lines by Charles Tomlinson

 Summer thunder darkens: the evening is falling apart.
 It is the end of the end of the second season of the year.
 We have lived through the apocalypse for too long.
...