The Mist Bench
Even at night, at random
a click
– and mist fumes
from the watch
towers clouding the cuttings
with fog
Bare leaves are downy
turn blurred
and glaucous
as the fine fur plumps
and sleeves itself
with water
Ten beats and it’s
finished
The electric leaf
buried in the leaves
is parched
and replenished
all night
Year-Round Chrysanthemums
In mid-July
they think it is winter
All it takes
is an hour’s incandescence
at midnight
and their day
germinates, twenty-four hours
makes two
Year-round chrysanthemums
the long nights
make you rich
and fecund
Your bunched, curled faces
magenta and saffron
phototropic with desire
inexorably riding the light
Send Letters To:
The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN
letters@lrb.co.uk
Please include name, address, and a telephone number.