Sundews
Like something
you might find encased
in a paperweight’s glass
or snorkel over,
shimmering angelfish
in tow.
Ruby Slippers, Red Ink,
Pale Rainbow, each name
an exact fit
for these wetland lovers,
hungry
for a luckless gnat
or damselfly;
each primed leaf
sprouting quills
tipped with a glittery deceit,
a viscous hell
disguised as a dewy heaven.
Victorian Jet
In the jeweller’s window,
an assortment of Victorian jet,
brooches and lockets
laid out
on a velvet tray,
like small fossils
of grief.
Moonflower
Coaxed into flower by a May full moon,
you bloom for just one night,
flood
busy tropical air with a scent
more pineapple than floral.
Intoxicate
hawkmoths for miles around,
desperate to reach
your nectar offering, petals
opened to a laundered freshness,
white as seed pearls or the pallor
of a short-lived heroine.
Titan Arum
Colossus of Sumatran forests,
who’ll have no truck with honey bees, fritillaries;
instead
with a stench of rotted corpse
tempt sexton beetles, flesh flies,
grim connoisseurs of carrion,
into sultry powder rooms.
A hothouse sellout, crowds swarmed
to your once in a blue moon flowering,
on your arrival at Kew.
Frock coated gentlemen turned crimson
as your pleated spathe,
at your raw priapic show,
while whale boned matrons pressed
to their faces fragranced silk,
to mask a surging thrill.
Stephen Bone’s work has appeared in magazines in the U.K. and U.S.
His first collection, In The Cinema, was published Playdead Press in 2014.
A pamphlet, Plainsong, is due from Indigo Dreams Publishing later in 2017.