Winter has sucked the landscape

back to black and white

but in the glass house

the world is plump and curved,

full of juice and spectrums.

 

We sit on the edge

of the savage garden

where tropical flowers

shred the light with their teeth.

The steamy scent

of sap and green life

soaks through our coats

and makes us sweat.

 

In here, nothing is subtle.

Hungry proboscis leer

and lick the balmy air.

Colours pulse, drip and dazzle.

Petals do not drift or whisper,

they drop onto the dirt

with a succulent thud:

He loves me, he loves me not.

 

Later I will remember

the liquid names of plants

that kill with sweetness:

Nepenthes, Pinguicula, Saracenia.

I will think of those gentle Latin nouns

turning into sensuous verbs

and I will think of him,

his shy soapstone fingers

turning into claws.